


like a map of a place you've never been

by bydaybreak



Category: Leverage
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Id Fic, M/M, Multi, Pining, Slow Burn, i kinda hate myself, lots of feelings, very little plot, yardwork is kinda hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:58:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3861028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bydaybreak/pseuds/bydaybreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows it’d be so fucking easy, if he’d let himself. Because he’s easy for them, has been since that first job, since the day he hauled Hardison’s ass out of a building about to explode. It’d be so easy.</p><p>So he won’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a map of a place you've never been

**Author's Note:**

> A million billion thanks to my very patient friends, who put up with me writing basically this entire fic in IM, and have also put up with my unending feelings about Eliot Spencer. Sorry. Y'all're the greatest.
> 
> Also, after I posted this, I made a [tumblr](http://bydaybreak.tumblr.com) so that I can have feelings all the time, and if you wanted to come be my friend there that would be awesome.

“Why can't Hardison do this?” Eliot says. “You know I’m not—”

Hardison looks up from the computer. “It’s because I gotta do all the tech stuff back here, ok? Because you're going to go barbeque things and hang out with rich white guys, and I’m going to sit in Lucille and smell my own farts for twelve hours a day.”

Eliot rolls his eyes, but it's not like he could do the tech, even if he wanted—they’ve got a couple bugs to keep an eye on already, and he suspects it’s going to get more complicated, not less, before they’re done.

The day before they head in, Eliot pulls Hardison aside. “Hey, man,” he says, “are you sure you're—”

Hardison cuts him off. “Look, there's a couple things I know about this job, all right? First, if I walk into that community, every goddamn person in the place is going to be looking at us. You know what the demographics of that place are like? Ninety-seven point six percent white. The remaining _two point four damn percent_ are Asian, and all women. You know who’s gonna stick out like a sore thumb?” 

Hardison doesn’t seem to care that Eliot doesn’t answer, and continues his frustrated speech. “Second,” Hardison says, “I know that Parker and I trust you with our lives, and that there's no one I'd rather her be going in there with than you. Hell, she's safer with you than with me, man.” 

Eliot's squirming inside, because he knows what Hardison means, but he’s having a hard time—it's not—

He nods, and says, “Yeah, ok.” Hardison looks like he expects something else, so Eliot adds, “We'll call you every night. You know I won't let anything happen—” and Hardison’s nodding, and Eliot knows he’s reading it the way he’s meant to. The way he should. That Hardison knows Eliot won't let anything happen to Parker, and Eliot knows, too, that he's promising himself, best he can, that he won't let anything happen. _Anything_. Won't let himself get too caught up in it, won't let himself enjoy it, won’t let— _won’t let anything_ , he thinks, firmly. 

He knows it’d be so fucking easy, if he’d let himself. Because he’s easy for them, has been since that first job, since the day he hauled Hardison’s ass out of a building about to explode. It’d be so easy.

So he won’t.

* * *

The next day he and Parker stand at the newly leased BMW, still parked behind the brewpub, awkwardly waiting for...something. The movers were supposed to show up at the house ( _not_ , he reminds himself, _your house_ ,) with “their stuff” at eleven, and it's nine thirty. “So,” he says, “it’s about time...” and Parker nods in agreement. 

Hardison kisses Parker, and then kinda unexpectedly steps in and hugs Eliot, too, hard, and kisses his cheek. It takes half a second before Eliot remembers to push him away, but he does. He does it before, he thinks, anyone notices, and he drags his hand over his cheek and says, “What the hell, Hardison?” in the best annoyed voice that he can muster.

Hardison just fucking grins and says, “You two have fun, now!” and Parker giggles, and Eliot is dreading this, already dreading it, his stomach drawing up tight and his shoulders tense. 

They get to the house just before the movers, and Parker disappears inside and leaves Eliot to stand there in his too-tight, buttoned-up shirt and direct them, fighting the urge to just take the damn dresser and unload it himself, _jesus_ , just put it over there and stop fucking asking questions about it.

Thirty minutes into it, Parker comes bounding out of the house and kisses him, full on, her arms around his waist and her mouth wet and hot against his, and before he even has a chance to react, she pulls back and slots herself neatly under his arm, snugged up against his side. 

“I called Sophie,” she says quietly, and Eliot nods.

“Sophie tell you to do that?” he asks, meaner than he meant to.

Parker says nothing for a beat, and then shrugs. “She says good luck,” she says, and she disappears back into the house. “Tell them to put the desk in the downstairs study!” she hollers back over her shoulder.

Eliot sighs, and watches for the desk, and, when it appears, directs them to the downstairs study instead of the larger upstairs one. Who the hell needs two damn studies, anyhow? 

It's solidly four hours before the movers are done, and by the time they’re ready to leave, Eliot is a hundred percent sure that it would've been faster, more efficient, and less stressful to just move all the goddamn furniture himself, how it looks to the neighbors be damned. He tips the moving crew well, because he’s not an asshole, and goes inside. 

Parker's lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, for a minute, he’s not sure if she's awake. “This house has twenty-eight points of egress that anyone could use, and another three that I can access,” she says.

Eliot looks around, because that—

“That seem weird to you?” she asks. “For a house this big? Only twenty-eight.”

“It's for rich people, Parker,” he says. “They wanna—”

She laughs, almost like choking, and she says, “ _We're_ rich people, Eliot.”

And that’s kinda the difference, he guesses. Because since Sophie and Nate left, it's hard not to think about what's going to happen next, where this might end up, and it's not hard to see Parker and Hardison going more or less straight, settling down, doing like rich people do. But he ain't— He knows that no matter how much money's in his bank, he can't ever pull off this kind of rich. Any kind of rich, really.

“Different rich people,” he offers. “Straight ones, not cons.”

“Oh,” says Parker, sounding bored. “Ones who can't get it back.”

Eliot nods, because close enough.

“You ever—” he starts, and then he makes himself stop.

Parker sits up to look at him, though, and he moves towards the kitchen. 

“You want supper?” he asks, and she lets it go, and he tells himself that he's grateful, because it was a question that he really didn't want an answer to.

Time was he was the guy who always had his eye on the next thing, always knew when the end was getting close. Anymore, though, he finds he can't bring himself to think too hard about it, and he sure as hell ain’t about to have this conversation with Parker, even if he’s come damn close to starting it.

It’s kind of a relief to find that the fridge was stocked, and it finally registers with him that a grocery delivery place had showed up halfway through the movers, and he’d pointed them to the kitchen with a grunt and then forgotten about it. He starts rummaging through the fridge, and finds better stuff than he would’ve expected—cheeses and vegetables and spices and wine. Hardison had placed the grocery order, and Eliot had already resigned himself to eating takeout for a few days until it would be acceptable for him to hit the supermarket himself. But this is all food—or, he thinks, opening a cupboard to find an entire cabinet of over sugared cereal, at least _mostly_ food.

“Hey,” he calls without turning around, “you want chicken for supper?”

“Yeah,” Parker says, her voice inches from his ear, and he jumps about a mile and a half. 

“Dammit, Parker,” he says, “don't do that.”

She ignores him; wraps her arms around his waist and rests her chin on his shoulder. He shrugs her off, carefully, because he doesn't actually want to hurt her, but—

“We're inside,” he says. “You don't gotta do that in here.”

Parker backs off, but not far, and Eliot looks away, feeling vaguely guilty for— _for nothing_ , he tells himself. This isn't his fault; he’s got nothing to feel bad about. 

It doesn’t make the feeling go away.

“I'll make the chicken,” he says after a minute, and Parker hops onto the counter and watches him, silently, as he chops vegetables and debones chicken thighs, as he opens wine and makes risotto and sautés spinach. It feels familiar, the way that their endless orders of pizza and Chinese do, the way that Parker and Hardison’s open-plan kitchen-living room does, and he relaxes a little, falling into the rhythm of what feels like home.

* * *

After supper they call Hardison, Parker's cell phone on speaker as they sit next to each other on the sofa, Parker's thigh pressed against Eliot's, his arm draped carefully behind her, resting along the back of the sofa instead of her shoulders. It's not that there's anything to report, even, but no one wants to hang up, and so they sit like that for solidly forty minutes, talking about nothing, until Hardison suddenly announces that he has to go.

“Why?” Parker asks, immediately suspicious, and Eliot can't blame her, because Hardison is nothing if not chatty. 

“Are you doing another one of your—your gaming parties?” Eliot demands.

Hardison stammers, and Eliot groans, because last time this happened they blew out a transformer in the pub.

“It'll be fine!” Hardison says defensively. “I had the internet line upgraded and got a backup generator put in to handle some of the load, and it's going to be _fine_. And now I have to go. You two kids go watch a movie or something,” he says, and even without a visual, Eliot’s got a lock on the amused look Hardison’s shooting them.

Parker says, “I love you,” and Hardison says, “I love you,” and Eliot says, without thinking, “I lo—” and then bites his tongue, blushing, and says, “Don't fuck up my kitchen, Hardison, don't you screw—”

Hardison says, “ _cksss_ oh, hey, _ssssshk_ the connection's gone bad, _krrrrresh_ I can't hear you, ok, BYE!” loudly, and then hangs up.

Parker laughs, and Eliot rolls his eyes. 

“So,” he says. 

“My turn to pick the movie!” Parker says brightly, and she shoos him into the kitchen to make popcorn (“We just ate dinner, Parker.” “There's always room for popcorn!” “Seriously?” “Go make the popcorn, Eliot.”) and finds the movie from Hardison's impressively large collection of movies, all stored in the cloud so that he and Parker can watch them anytime, anywhere.

Eliot suffers through the entirety of _Mama Mia_ (which, if he's honest, he kind of enjoys, because what kind of asshole doesn't like ABBA?) and makes a second batch of popcorn after Parker eats the entirety of the first batch on her own. 

“Ok,” he says when it's over, “I’m going to bed. That's enough for one day.”

Parker nods and flops onto his back, bonelessly, silently demanding that he piggyback her upstairs. He does, stopping in the kitchen to drop off the popcorn bowl, keeping his hands carefully under her knees. He carries her up the stairs and deposits her on the bed in the master bedroom, then lazily salutes.

“Night, Parker,” he says, and starts for the door.

“Where're you going?” she says. “All your stuff's in the bathroom.” She nods to the master bath, and Eliot shakes his head.

“I’ll go sleep on the sofa.” He knows full well that there's only one bed in this house, and it seems wrong for him to be in it.

Parker furrows her brow. “Why?” she says, and Eliot shakes his head.

“Because you're sleepin' in here,” he says, “and that means that I should sleep somewhere else.”

“There are twenty-eight points of egress,” she says, “plus another four that I could use—I found another one earlier—but a lot of them are big windows, and Hardison and Sophie said we had to—”

“Act the parts, I know,” finishes Eliot, because this isn't the first time he's gotten this lecture. “I don’t think that means they want you an' me sharing a bed.”

Parker makes the huff of air that she makes when she's exasperated and glares at him.

“You don't think it’d be weird if—”

Her glare intensifies, and Eliot stops talking, because he's not stupid, and he knows when to quit. 

“What if I sleep on the floor in here,” he asks, trying to compromise. The glare returns, and Eliot says a silent prayer that there's a god out there somewhere, and maybe that the god could muster up a tiny bit of sympathy for a damned man, and says, “Ok, no floor.”

Parker grins, and then tumbles off the foot of the bed, landing on her feet and launching herself into the bathroom.

“First!” she cries, and the door closes, and Eliot's left alone with the huge bed, the empty room, the twenty-eight points of egress that he can access, and the growing feeling that this job is a huge, huge mistake.

After a couple minutes, he hears Parker singing, off key, in the bathroom, and realizes that he has a finite amount of time before there's no possible way around— _pyjamas_ , he thinks, and if he could kick himself, he could.

“Dammit,” he mutters, and he starts digging through the dresser, because he's sure that somewhere in with all the expensive, tailored clothing that they bought for this job, he has a nice, normal pair of workout shorts, and he can wear those and a teeshirt and that will be normal, because he's pretty sure that Parker won't appreciate either of his normal sleep options, which are usually either one, fully clothed, shoes on, or two, totally naked.

If he's honest, it's often more like two, totally naked, shoes still on, but he's aware that's kind of weird, and possibly the kind of weird that would be weird even to someone like Parker. He finds the shorts and breathes what's close to a sigh of relief, and starts trying to figure out how to do this with the least amount of distress for anyone. If Parker goes to sleep right away, he can kinda...sneak in after she's gone to bed, maybe, if he takes a while in the bathroom.

Then he can get up before her and go make breakfast, which is both situationally appropriate and, he thinks, a way that he can hopefully prevent Parker from having to—

He stops thinking, because the whole point of this is that _Parker won't have to_ , and so he should definitely not think about it. 

He's still not thinking about any of the potential _it_ s when the caterwauling in the bathroom stops and Parker comes out. 

She squints at him distrustfully. “You're still dressed,” she says, and he tries not to look at her, because she's wearing a tank top and a pair of boxers and nothing else, and Hardison is his _best fucking friend_ , and Eliot hates that he just thought that. Hates that Hardison—fucking _Hardison_ , of all people—is his best friend; hates that he immediately noticed exactly what Parker was ( _more like wasn’t_ , his traitorous brain offers) wearing. You don’t think about your best friend like that, Eliot tells himself. You don’t think about your best friend’s girl like that, either.

“I just have to, uh—” he says, and gestures towards the bathroom.

Parker rolls her eyes at him. “It's not like we've never done this before,” she says, and he doesn't know how to articulate things like _it's different when I’m trying to keep you alive_ and _never standing next to a huge bed_ and also _not since I had that dream about you and Hardison and_ —so he just shrugs.

“I gotta piss,” he says, and ducks into the bathroom.

His face is flaming, which he kinda knew was happening but is still embarrassing, and he sits on the lid of the toilet and puts his head in his hands and tries not to think about—( _about Parker's breasts_ , his brain offers helpfully, and _about that dream_ , and _the way that Parker and Hardison look when they're kissing, the way that they look when they don't know that you're looking at them_ ; about—)

Eliot turns the shower on, cold, and steps in, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to think about deep water, about submersion. About drowning.

Which, he admits to himself, was maybe not the best thing to think about, because it leaves the idea of being in _way over your head_ right there, just at the edge of his thoughts, and he's not thinking about that.

By the time he's out of the shower, his teeth are chattering and his feet ache with cold, but his dick is no longer nearly as interested in things as it was ten minutes ago. He scrubs angrily at his teeth and pulls on the shorts, and the shirt, and glares at himself in the mirror.

“Right,” he mutters, and quietly opens the door, hoping that Parker's asleep.

She's not, though; she's sitting on top of the dresser, legs crossed under herself, and looking at a book. She looks up when Eliot comes in and smiles at him.

“What'd you do, pee on yourself?” she asks teasingly, and it takes him a second to remember.

“I—you know.” He gestures at nothing. “We had the movers and stuff,” he says, and Parker laughs and somersaults onto the bed.

She bounces a couple times, like she's testing the springs, and then says “It's pretty sproingy.”

“It's not a gymnastics mat, Parker,” he says. Kinda growls more than says, if he’s honest about it. She stops bouncing and drops herself flat on one side of the bed. He sits carefully on what he guesses is his side, and she's not wrong; it really is pretty sproingy.

Parker smacks her nightstand. “Hardison!” she says. “We should get one of these!”

“What the hell, Parker,” Eliot hisses. “You're not—wh—”

“Already done, babe,” Hardison's voice says, cutting Eliot off, and Eliot can't decide if he feels relieved or sick.

“Hey, Eliot,” Hardison continues. 

Parker looks pleased. “We set up a thing!” she says. “That way we can talk to him whenever, and it won't look weird, like we're on the phone all the time. There's even a cam!” Her face wrinkles a little. “Well, there's a cam on his end. We couldn't figure out a way to do it on this end, because there’s nowhere good to put a screen.”

Eliot sputters a moment, and then he makes himself stop, because if he's honest, it probably can't hurt to know that Hardison can look in on him any time. 

“Good job,” he says, and he knows it's kinda weak, but it's about all he's got on short notice. 

“It's like Santa,” Parker says, sounding pleased. “He sees you when you're sleeping—”

Hardison laughs, and Eliot bristles a little bit.

“It's damn September, Parker,” Eliot says, and immediately regrets it, because Parker looks hurt and stops talking.

“So, uh—” Hardison picks up, and Eliot shakes his head.

“Sorry, Parker,” Eliot says. “I’m just going to—”

Parker nods approvingly as he drops his head down to the pillow, sinking into the cool, crisp linens. They smell like Parker and Hardison’s apartment, smell like—

“Go to bed, cranky Eliot,” she says, and Hardison laughs, and Eliot has never felt this guilty for anything that didn't involve killing someone.

“Both of y'all go to bed,” says Hardison. “You got a full day of being rich white people tomorrow. Gotta do all those—you know, rich white people things.”

“Ooh,” Parker says, sitting up with enough force that the bed sproings again. “Like _brunch_.”

“Yeah,” says Hardison, sounding remarkably unbothered by his girlfriend's eagerness to spend the night next to and then have brunch with Eliot. “There's a little spot right down the street—a lot of people go there. Go poke around.”

Eliot doesn't groan, because he's not going to piss in Parker's fruity sugar-os, but there goes his brilliant plan to make breakfast as a way to get out of bed bright and early.

“'Kay,” says Parker happily. “Night, Hardison!”

“Night, babe,” says Hardison. “Love you.”

“Love you!” Parker chirps.

“Night, Eliot,” says Hardison, and that's—it’s kind of him, even if it's entirely undeserved.

“Night, Hardison,” he says. “Night, Parker.”

Parker pets his head, and he can hear the connection with Hardison go dead.

“Go to sleep,” he says softly, and Parker curls up behind him.

“Ok,” she says, and just like that, she's out.

It's not that Eliot's a fussy sleeper. He's slept in Iranian prisons, and in literal holes in the ground in Siberia. He’s slept in a tree, and in war zones, and it’s always been fine. But tonight he can't get comfortable, can't stop feeling the warmth of Parker at his back, even in the room still holding the lingering warmth of autumn days, even though he carefully tucked the sheet down between them, wedging it under his hip so that he couldn't accidentally get too close. 

He sets an alarm for six and figures that Parker can't possibly be up before that, and he stays real still and closes his eyes and thinks about nothing. He must doze off at some point, because when Parker rolls into him, he wakes up with a start, his instinctive fight response barely suppressed by his sudden hyperawareness of her nearness.

She mumbles sleepily and drapes one of her arms over him, snuggling herself up against his back, curtain of sheet between them or not. It’s a minute or two before she seems settled, and her breathing evens back out, and then, carefully, he scoots towards the edge of the bed. He figures that if he moves carefully enough, she won’t notice and he can sneak off to the bathroom for a while, maybe sleep for a couple hours in there.

One leg’s already off the bed when Parker murmurs unhappily and scootches toward him, and he freezes. She pulls on his waist, gently, and he curses himself for being a fucking pussy, because he can't just duck out and hide, not—not if he’s gotta look her in the eye in the morning. He grits his teeth. 

“Parker,” he says, softly, “ _Parker_.”

“Mmm?” she says, clearly still asleep, pressing herself closer to him she’s going to try to climb inside of him.

“You gotta—Parker, it's—”

“Come back to bed,” she says, and her voice is all soft and muzzy, and not even the crawling guilt working up his spine is going to keep him from following her orders, letting her pull him back towards the center of the bed, towards her. 

He stays still as she positions herself, as she moves his arms so that she's comfortable, and he reminds himself over and over that this isn't for him. Get tired enough, some people’ll snuggle anything. She probably thinks he’s Hardison.

“Go back to sleep, Eliot,” she says, sounding half asleep. And Eliot does; he falls asleep thinking about why this doesn't mean anything, anything at all.

* * *

He smacks his phone when the alarm goes off, immediately awake, and remembering way, way too fast the way that Parker had said his name last night. Even now, hours later, she's still plastered against him, one of her legs through his. He reflexively twitches his hips before his goddamn brain comes back online and he realizes that doing that is the opposite of what he'd intended, of what he owes her and Hardison both.

So he ignores the soft sound that she makes and carefully extracts himself, dragging his legs away from hers slowly, and then hightails it into the bathroom.

If this job lasts long, he's going to be the cleanest damn muscle in the fucking country.

He keeps the shower brief, not knowing when Parker gets up, but takes long enough to jerk himself off hard and fast, leaning heavily against the wall and thinking about nothing, not a damn thing.

It’s not until he’s out of the shower and dried off that it hits him that he failed to bring clean clothes into the bathroom. He wraps the towel around his waist and sticks his head into the bedroom, hoping that he’ll catch a break and Parker will still be asleep.

No such luck, though.

Parker's up, sitting on the bed and looking perky, and Eliot blushes and grabs his towel skirt a little more tightly.

“Brunch!” Parker says, far too cheerfully for someone just rolled out of bed.

Eliot shakes his head. “It's eight in the morning, Parker. Not time for brunch yet.”

“Oh,” she says, and she sounds disappointed. “If we went now, it'd just be breakfast. That's hardly fancy at all.”

Eliot grabs a pair of boxers out of a drawer and awkwardly tries to drag them on without dropping his towel. It almost works, and he only has to spin to face the wall for the very end.

After watching this— _of course, after_ , he thinks—Parker disappears, mercifully, into the bathroom.

“Wear something nice!” she calls from behind the closed door.

Two hours later, Eliot's wearing pants that cost more than his first car and a button down that feels like choking, Parker's wearing a skirt and a shirt that shows more of her cleavage than Eliot's really comfortable with, and she's pulling him out the front door.

“You sure you wanna walk there in those heels?” he asks, looking suspiciously at her feet.

Parker rolls her eyes and heads for the sidewalk, and he follows her, kinda relieved that the heels make her just slow enough that he doesn't have to run to catch up.

“Do you think that they'll have the fancy pancakes with chocolate in them?” she asks, and for a moment Eliot can't say anything, because she's grabbed his hand and twined her fingers through his, and he has to forcibly remind himself that this is a job, that he shouldn’t pull away.

“What?” he says absently, filling the dead air. _It doesn't mean anything_ , he reminds himself. “Crepes,” he says to her, “with Nutella. And probably.”

Parker grins at him. The way her hand swings makes it feel like she tightens her grip on his fingers, and Eliot forces himself not to look down at their joined hands. 

She fills the quiet for the rest of the walk, occasionally singing snatches of ABBA from last night's movie and chattering about their new neighborhood.

“It’s that house,” Eliot says, finally, interrupting her and nodding subtly at a house across the street. 

“Doesn't look evil,” she says, “except for their tacky landscaping.” Eliot shrugs, because she’s not wrong, but just because something looks ok doesn’t mean—

And then they're at the diner.

“Table for two, please,” he says to the hostess— _what the hell kind of diner_ , he thinks, _has a fucking hostess?_ —and he's glad that he's wearing the trousers, as Hardison had put it, because he and Parker seem, if anything, underdressed. 

The menu does, in fact, have crepes with Nutella, though, and also eggs benedict, and a side of sausage, and a pitcher of mimosas, which Parker orders with excitement that's a little worrying. Eliot's eaten less than half of his meal when she starts getting loud, talking excitedly to the people at the tables around them.

The mimosa pitcher doesn't _seem_ that empty, but—

“—And we just moved in, me an' my hunnybunny,” she's saying, “and we just LOVE it! it's so NICE! Which house ish yours?”

When Parker pours herself another mimosa and demands that everyone around them tell her which house is theirs, Eliot starts attempting to flag down a waitress for the check. By the time she hits the third table, this one on the other side of an etched glass partition, he gives up on the waitress, mentally tallies the (exorbitant) bill in his head, and leaves a ridiculously large sum of money on the table.

“Come on, honey,” he says, trying not to grit his teeth. Parker sloshes her glass a little, and he wonders how he's never noticed before now that she's sort of a lightweight.

“But I’m not done!” she says, and Eliot smiles tightly.

She sighs heavily and stumbles to her feet. 

“Thank you so much” she says to the guy at the table behind them. “It was sho nice to meet you,” she says, messily, to someone else, and then she continues until she's addressed every person within a six-table radius and the waitress, who has magically appeared (finally), is glaring at them.

Eliot shoulders her up and leads her to the door, apologizing as they go.

“Carry me,” she says as soon as they're out the door, and he does, carefully picking her up, cradling her like a child, and starting towards the house. He hasn't gone more than a few steps before she starts talking again.

“Ok,” she says, no longer sounding drunk at all, “so the house doesn't look evil, but that guy super does.”

Eliot tries not to look surprised, but must fail. Parker puts her mouth next to his ear and drags her hand down the side of his face. 

“Sophie's a good teacher,” she says into his ear, “and now everyone knows who we are.”

Eliot can fill in the blanks: everyone knows that Parker's not a threat, no matter what Eliot might look like.

“Good call.”

“I got his wallet,” Parker says. “Just in case.”

“What?” Eliot says. “Parker, that's—you don’t think that's a little obvious?”

“I put it back!” she says. “I just took pictures of the stuff that was in it first.”

Suddenly, Parker loudly deciding to Instagram her half-eaten breakfast makes a lot more sense. With just the three of them, they’ve been spread a little thin, and it’s been a while since he’s been around while she’s grifting. She’s better than he’d realized—and he’d already thought she was pretty good.

“Oh,” he says. 

As soon as he closes the front door behind them, Parker swings easily out of his arms. 

“I’m gonna send all the wallet stuff to Hardison,” she says, “see if he can find anything.”

Eliot nods and looks around, still warm where she'd been pressed against his chest. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna cut the lawn,” he says, looking out the window. The grass is longish and could use cutting, and, more importantly, it's an hour of work that gets him out of the house, out of these pants, and, he hopes, out of the echo chamber of his own head.

He grabs a pair of shorts and a ratty tee-shirt and heads out to the shed (which is also weird, because who the hell needs a shed when you've also got a three-car garage and a lawn service?) and drags out the mower, which is half rusted out. Which makes sense, he guesses, in this neighborhood. It fires up ok, though, and he heaves a sigh of relief and sets to it.

By the time he's finished the back yard, he's sweating and regretting this decision a little bit. The walk to and from the diner was all right, but in the midday sun, even in September, he's roasting. He wheels the mower around to the front anyhow; starts at the side and sets about making stripes, up and down, evenly and nicely lined up. He's about halfway done when Parker comes outside, barefoot and wearing the shortest shorts he's ever seen her—or anybody else—wear.

“Hey,” she says, and he cuts the engine.

Parker kisses him, roughly, pulling at his hair, and he jerks back a little. 

“What the hell,” he says. “This is—”

She cuts him off, tugging him back in and pressing her mouth against his. “Shh,” she says against his lips, and then tilts her head a little, pressing their foreheads together. “Remember, I’m still supposed to be drunk.” She pulls away and waves a fruity-looking drink with an umbrella in it at him. “Now,” she announces loudly, “I’m gonna enjoy the show!”

This was not what Eliot had in mind when he decided to come do yardwork. Not even a little bit.

He's about to restart the mower when Parker glares at him. 

“And take your shirt off,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows disturbingly. 

But he does, peels it off and lets her take it, and then she actually does go to the porch, situates herself on a lounger, and give him a very obvious once over. 

“Ok,” she says, eventually, “continue.”

Not even _close_ to what he’d had in mind.

* * *

“Other people watch their pool boys,” she explains later, after Eliot's mown the lawn, been ogled by half a dozen middle-aged women, showered, and collapsed on the sofa with a beer. He closes his eyes against the glare of the setting sun creeping down the walls. 

“I think that's a little different, Parker,” he says. He can feel the weight of her scowl, closed eyes or no, and he swings his feet up onto the sofa and rests his head on the arm, pulling on the beer. “But you’re right; it worked,” he allows, partly because he’s feeling guilty that he underestimated her earlier, and party because—well, because it had. She'd stayed outside for a half hour after Eliot had gone in, and in that time she'd met the vast majority of the neighbors they hadn't met at breakfast—or, at least, the vast majority of the female neighbors.

“Are we even sure this guy has people working for him?” asks Eliot. 

Parker shrugs. “He's super rich, and he lives here. He's not doing his own dirty work,” she says. It’s simultaneously entirely correct and not at all what Eliot had been asking.

It's a little easier, that night, not to think about Parker in bed behind him. Somehow he'd never realized just how exhausting it could be to have someone with you all the time.

“What?” Parker says, and Eliot shakes his head against the pillow.

“Huh?” he asks.

“What'd you say?” she repeats, and Eliot shakes his head, again, because he hadn’t said a damn word.

“Did you just say that you'd never realized how exhausting it could be to be with someone all the time?” Hardison asks over the line, sounding amused, and Eliot must've dozed off because he doesn't remember Hardison being there, and he definitely doesn't remember saying—well, anything.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I must've dozed off.”

Hardison’s full-on laughing, now. “Parker wear you out, man?”

It feels like it's a vaguely dangerous question, even bleary and half asleep, and he shakes his head no. “I just—I’m just—” 

He's saved from having to explain further by yawning hugely.

Parker draws the blankets up over him, and before he knows what’s happened, he's asleep. 

He wakes up sometime later in a dark room, Parker plastered against him, and this, he thinks, this is the part that's dangerous. He can fight whatever this guy wants to throw at them, can take about any punishment that anyone’s interested in dishing out, but this... At least in the day he can look at her, can pull up a hundred memories of her and Hardison, and how fucking happy they are together, and how it’s his job to protect that, not risk fucking it all up. But at night, it's just him, and the dark, and the warmth of someone at his back, and it takes everything in him not to relax into that, to let himself forget everything else and take whatever comfort she'll let him have.

He doesn't go back to sleep, just lies awake, staring into the dark, and forcing himself to remember—in great detail—the reasons that this isn’t for him, and the reasons that a guy like him should stay away from things like this. Like her. Like them.

When the first weak light starts to slide across the ceiling, he slips out of bed and heads into the basement, where they've set up a makeshift gym. He attacks the punching bag with more vigor than is probably really needed for an early morning workout, and hits it until he remembers, down to his muscles, that this is who he is, and this is what he can offer. That this is all he can offer. 

He hoses off briefly in the shower down there, since the house has three damn showers, then heads to the kitchen, where he makes crepe batter and a cup of tea before taking the tea and settling on the sofa. He figures he’s got a solid hour of SportsCenter to watch before Parker gets up.

The next thing he knows, the television is dark, and he wakes with a start. There's a blanket over him, and Parker is perched on the armchair opposite the sofa, staring at him interestedly.

“We agreed no couches,” she says, sounding hurt. 

“I didn't mean to,” he says, but Parker's brow doesn't unfurrow. “I'll come back to bed next time?” he offers, and she smiles slightly. “And I made breakfast?” he says, and all's forgiven.

They eat breakfast in the kitchen, Parker recounting her conversation with Hardison the night before, as well as what he'd found out about their mark, who is definitely, she says, using college students to run drugs for him, and then--something. 

“I mean, they all end up dead somehow. Hardison's gonna come over tonight,” she says casually, her mouth full of crepe, “and we'll look at it some more then.”

Eliot nods, because it's a good idea to have Hardison there. It feels like he could use a reminder, a quick kick of normalcy to get his head out of his ass. 

The afternoon passes uneventfully, and by half past six, Eliot's got the grill heating up and has returned to the kitchen to prep the rest of the meal, and Parker's sitting at the table on the patio, drinking a glass of wine. 

“Hey,” Eliot says, sticking his head out the back door, “do you need anything?” 

Parker shakes her head, and kicks the chair next to her so that it's pushed out from the table, a clear invitation. The meat's marinating, and—what the hell. Eliot sits down, looking out into the yard instead of at what Parker looks like in the light of the setting sun. 

“It's nice out here,” she says, and Eliot swallows hard. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and wonders if this is how home felt when he was a kid, like slow autumn evenings and breeze and the smell of woodsmoke. They sit in silence for long enough that Eliot starts to get uncomfortable, starts to feel like he oughta be doing something, or like he’s messing things up by just sitting, but when he risks a glance at her face, she looks faraway and soft and warm. She looks happy, he thinks.

It’s a relief when the doorbell rings. 

Parker goes to let in Hardison, and Eliot throws the meat on the grill, then stays there, face hot from the fire, listening to the soft rise and fall of Parker and Hardison talking in the kitchen and letting himself remember why he’s here. By the time they're sitting down to eat, the sun's dipped below the trees.

It's weirder than he'd expected. Sitting outside on the patio had seemed like a good idea when he'd suggested it, but he's very aware, now that they're doing it, that as long as they're out there, he and Parker still have to act like they're married. Act like they're married in front of Eliot's closest friend. Eliot’s closest damn friend, who is also Parker's boyfriend. It’s not even that they have to do anything differently—they’re sitting at a table and eating, and that looks about the same no matter who you’re doing it with, most of the time—but the thought sits heavy in the back of his mind.

“I’m getting another drink,” Parker says at a lull in the conversation, hopping up. “You guys want anything?” 

He shakes his head no, and she pauses next to his chair, dropping an easy kiss on his mouth, and then goes inside as Eliot tries not to look at Hardison. “Sorry,” he says as soon as she's beyond the doorway. “She's takin' hints from Sophie, you know? I—”

Hardison cuts him off, half laughing. “I know, man,” he says, “it's fine. Really, don't worry about it. I figure the last guy I need to be worried about is you.”

Eliot would be insulted, but he's pretty sure it's not meant that way. He's also pretty sure that Hardison's wrong, and Eliot is definitely not the last guy he's gotta worry about. 

It must show on his face, because Hardison keeps going. “Hey,” he says, “I just, you know, I trust her. And I trust you. And I—”

He stops talking as Parker hipchecks the door open and comes back into the yard, her wine glass refilled and another stack of napkins in her hand, and Hardison looks at Eliot meaningfully and changes the subject. 

After supper they head inside, and Eliot does the dishes while Parker and Hardison talk in the living room. When he goes in to join them, he's not entirely surprised to find that Hardison's in the armchair and Parker's on the sofa, which she pats to indicate he should come sit next to her. 

“I'll just—” he says, and gestures, vaguely, towards the stairs, the bedroom, so that they can have some privacy. 

“Come on,” says Parker, rolling her eyes, and he does, sitting stiffly next to her. She burrows into his side, wiggling so that his arm drapes over her shoulder, and he forces himself not to pull away. ( _Pulling away ain’t really the problem you’ve got_ , he thinks, and he keeps it off his face.)

“We're _inside_ ,” he hisses, because _what the fuck, Parker_. 

Hardison rolls his eyes. “We're in front of a window,” he says, “and, like I was saying, y'all got some seriously nasty dudes around here.” 

Parker snuggles closer to his side, and Eliot pays attention to what Hardison's saying, explaining the presumably complex web of money laundering and drug trafficking that all-around nastiness that he’s managed to link back to their mark. Eliot pays attention, and asks questions, and doesn’t think about the warm weight of Parker pressed against him, or the way that Hardison’s eyes keep landing on Parker’s hand on Eliot’s thigh. 

They talk for a long time—eventually, they run out of intel on the guy and start talking about other things: the brewpub, Hardison's video games, Parker's suggestion for this year’s vacation, which is that they break into the new museum that opened in London. It’s comfortable, almost like being at home, only at home, he’d be on the armchair and Parker would be sprawled over Hardison on the sofa, and they’d have SportsCenter on one screen, muted, and probably a monster movie on another screen, and something in his chest aches a little, thinking about it. 

Hardison stands up, eventually, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I gotta go,” he says, “but I'll come back in a day or two.” Eliot groans a little bit, because he'd convinced himself that this would be wrapped up quickly and they could go back to their real lives. 

“Aw, I love you, too,” Hardison says to him, and Eliot blushes and bites his tongue and does his best to sneer a little bit.

Not that Hardison notices; he's already hugging Parker goodbye, kissing her quickly, then hugging Eliot.

“Kiss her goodnight for me, huh?” Hardison says, grinning, and he laughs as Eliot sputters, then disappears into the night. 

“I ain't—” Eliot says, but Hardison's long gone, and Parker's looking at him sadly and seriously. “I ain't gonna kiss anybody,” he says, quietly, feeling stupid, and Parker closes the door. 

“You don't have to,” she says, but it's quiet and distant and she's halfway up the stairs. “I’m going to bed,” she says. She doesn't look back, but Eliot watches her as Hardison's headlights flash across the room.

“I’m coming,” he says to no one, and he turns off the lights.

* * *

He does a better job that night than he has so far. By the time he gets upstairs, Parker’s already in bed. She doesn't say anything to him when he comes into the room, so he doesn’t say anything, either, and instead goes to shower. When he gets in bed, she's long since asleep; when he wakes up, it's morning, and she's still asleep, and she's not touching him at all. 

He goes downstairs with the feeling that he should feel better about things than he does.

After that, they kind of fall into a routine. 

Eliot's careful about it, careful not to overstep, careful to go to bed after her, careful to get up before her, careful not to yawn and give away that he's barely sleeping. Careful to remind himself that this isn't real life, not really, and that he’s got a job to do. For the most part, the reminders work. He wants Parker and Hardison to be safe, to be happy, and he can do this, can do it for them. 

He tries not to look forward to the mornings when he wakes up with Parker draped over him, pressed against him. Tries not to look forward to the nights when Hardison comes to supper, and the easy, casual affection that he showers on Parker and Eliot both. 

It’s not something he has to look forward to with Parker, anymore. They go out to lunch, to supper; they meet and chat politely with their neighbors; they case the mark’s house. Parker keeps up a steady stream of visible affection towards him through all of this, her arm around his waist, her lips soft against his cheek. Even in the house, she always has a hand on his arm, or in his hair, or kisses him on her way to the bathroom or the kitchen or the other side of the room. It's distracting in a way that makes him kinda twitchy, like waiting for a gunshot that never comes.

“Hey,” says Hardison when he shows up for supper, and then he stops and squints at Eliot. “You getting sick, man?”

Parker breezes into the room and kisses Hardison, quickly, before returning to Eliot's side, and Eliot shakes his head at Hardison.

Hardison wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, I see. She keeping you up all night?”

Eliot can feel his cheeks heat, and he's not sure when he developed this amazing ability to blush, but he's damn sure that he doesn't like it. “What, Hardison—no!” he says, and then turns and heads for the kitchen, because he's pretty sure that he needs to chop carrots for the salad. Or tenderize the meat. Or, maybe, punch the refrigerator.

“Seriously, though,” Hardison says later. Parker's in the bathroom, and Eliot and Hardison are doing dishes, though Hardison's “drying”, which translates to standing around with a dishtowel in his hand. “Are you sure you're ok? You're looking kinda—you know. Peaky.”

“It's fine, Hardison,” Eliot says. It’s not a lie. It’s fine. This is a job, and it’s going just fine.

Hardison studies him for a minute and Eliot looks at the soap suds in the sink, but Hardison doesn't say anything else, and before long, Parker comes in and starts talking about getting a dog, and Eliot and Hardison are wholly absorbed in talking her out of that.

* * *

“Eliot?” Parker says that night in bed.

He'd gotten in bed too early, convinced she was already asleep, and has been lying awake, staring at the ceiling and counting the spaces between Parker's breaths. 

“Yeah,” he says, not sure that he wants to have whatever conversation this is.

Parker waits long enough that he wonders, briefly, if she's fallen asleep, and then she sighs and makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, like there are words choking her, somewhere. “Do you ever think about—” she says, and then stops. 

“Think about what, Parker?” he prompts. It’s late, and this feels like the start of a conversation that could take forever if he doesn’t push her a little bit.

“Think about—” she says, and stops, and starts again. “Do you ever think about a house like this?”

It doesn't feel like it's the question that she'd started to ask, but he answers anyhow, shrugging into the dark.

“I dunno,” he admits. “Would be I did all the time, once, maybe. Anymore—” he stalls out a little bit, and he’s grateful for the dark. “Guys like me don't settle down in places like this,” he says, finally. 

Parker's voice is small next to him, and she says, “Oh,” softly, and he feels bad that—in addition to it not being the question she'd wanted to ask, he's pretty sure she didn't get the answer she wanted, either.

“You ever think about it?” he asks, hoping that it'll catch her before she thinks too long on whatever he's said wrong.

“Archie had a big house,” Parker says eventually, and the conversation just continues its slow slide sideways, right into places he doesn't want to be. She doesn't seem to want a response, though, because she keeps going. “His family lived there. I broke in, once, when they were on vacation. Slept in every bed in the house that week.” He’s pretty sure that if he could see her face, she'd be smiling. In the dark, though, it’s just her voice and the faint thread of pride in it, and it's somehow worse than seeing her smile through it.

“You could have a big house, Parker,” he says, offering it as best he can. “You an' Hardison, you could get a place like this. Nicer, even; you got the money, you could do what you want. Have all the beds you want and sleep in a different one every night.”

Something moves under the covers, and a moment later, Parker's hand finds his, lacing their fingers together. 

“Thanks, Eliot,” she says, and the room goes quiet. Eventually she falls asleep, her fingers still twined with his. Eliot can't fall asleep for a long time, though, staring at the ceiling in a house and a life that can't be his.

* * *

The next morning, he's out of bed, showered, and dressed before Parker's even started to blink awake, and he spends a couple lazy hours first in the gym, then on the sofa, where he makes a mental note to thank Hardison for the sports package that he’d set them up with before losing himself in the analysis of last night’s game.

Parker comes downstairs around ten and squints at him. “You can't wear that,” she says, and he rolls his eyes a little bit. “You have to wear something nice,” she continues.

“Ok,” he says, getting up. _Parker’s gotten good at this_ , he thinks. Sophie would’ve scolded him for it, too, for not _fully inhabiting your character_ or something like that. Parker intercepts him on his way to the stairs, slipping into his personal space just long enough to drop a kiss on his cheek before she heads into the kitchen and he heads upstairs.

“We leave in an hour!” Parker yells, too loud, and he stops on the stairs.

 _We leave in an hour for what?_ he thinks, and then reluctantly turns around and goes back into the kitchen.

Parker's got her head buried in the fridge, and he can't help but feel like it's intentional. 

“Leave for what?” he says after a moment. She hasn't resurfaced yet, and mumbles something to the milk. “Parker,” he says, gently pushing the door of the fridge closed and stepping into her line of sight, “we leave for what in an hour?”

“Oh,” she says in a tone that makes Eliot clench his teeth, “nothing big! Just a little thing with some of the neighbors.”

His back molars scrape against each other.

“What neighbors?” he grits out. Parker digs through a drawer, seemingly looking for a very specific spoon from their shockingly large collection of identical cutlery.

“Just— _mblms ssmh_ ,” she mumbles, clanking the silverware together.

He grabs a spoon, puts it in her hand, and closes the drawer.

“What neighbors?” he says again. 

Parker has the good grace to look a little ashamed, at least. “Some of the—um. There's a...”

Eliot squints.

“Parker,” he says, “what're we doing today?”

“Wine tour!” It’s too abrupt, and he waits for the rest of it, which comes a beat later. “And also fancy handmade furniture!”

He resists the urge to groan and feels pretty fucking virtuous for making it.

“Who with, Parker?”

Spending a day with the fucking mark and half a dozen other rich dudes sipping wine and looking at overpriced furniture isn't really Eliot's idea of a great time, but it’ll give Hardison time to bug the guy’s house, and they could really do with the intel. Eliot heads upstairs, putting on the official casual rich guy uniform of the con, and then comes back down.

“Ok,” he says, and Parker look at him appraisingly. It gets his hackles up a little, the way she looks at him, but she nods and kisses his cheek and goes upstairs, and his stomach twists with the uncomfortable feeling that he’s missed something. 

She's back downstairs ten minutes later, looking...well, looking like Parker, if Parker were rich and maybe a little evil. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a good look on her.

“It'll be fun!” she chirps as they head outside, and Eliot bites back his snippy response and offers her his arm.

* * *

A couple hours later he's sort of regretting his earlier restraint, because two wineries, one “classic wooden furniture” shop, and two hours of driving is starting to seriously grate on him. They pile out of the limo (the _limo_ that one of the neighbors _owned_ , that their goddamn _driver_ is driving) at the next stop, and Eliot trudges along, reluctantly. 

One of the men hangs back a few steps, waiting for Eliot to catch up to him. 

“Ha,” he says, “the missus pull you along on this one? It's not really my thing either, but it seems to keep them content.” The guy looks at him appraisingly, and for the second time that day, Eliot has the feeling that he’s being assessed for something and doesn’t know what it is. “You should join us for boys' night sometime,” the guy says. “Tuesday at nine. Come to my workshop.”

Before Eliot has a chance to say anything else, the guy's jogging to catch up with his wife, and Eliot's mentally rolling his eyes at the idea of that guy having a workshop, like he's ever done a day of work in his life.

Eliot walks out of that store thirty thousand dollars poorer, having paused too long in front of a dining room set. 

“Oooooh,” one of the women had squealed, running her hand along the back of one of the chairs, “you should get this one! Look,” she'd said to Parker, “he's wild about it!”

It turns out that there's no good way to tell a whole limo full of super rich assholes that you don't want to buy a thirty fucking thousand dollar dining room set, so it's being delivered next week.

He'd really hoped that they'd be done with this all by next week, but apparently no such luck. 

Hardison laughs when they tell him about it that night.

The lights are low, and they've got Hardison on the weird bedroom-speaker thing. There's still no visual on their end, but he, apparently can see them just fine, because ninety percent of his laughter is allegedly about the look on Eliot's face. 

“We can put it in the brewpub when y'all're done in there,” Hardison says, and Eliot growls a little. 

“Hardison, you do not need to put a thirty thousand dollar dining room set in your brewpub,” he says, and Parker snorts and rests her head on his shoulder. He freezes, as still as he can, and waits for her to move, because Hardison’s watching them. They all know, they all have to know, that it’s just for the con, but it seems rude, somehow, right where Hardison can see them. She doesn’t move, though, and stays like that long enough that he eventually pushes her, gently, towards her own side of the bed. 

She looks kinda hurt when she glances at him, but Eliot knows that this shit ain’t right. You don’t do that to someone else’s—you just don’t do it. 

After another round of jokes about the dining set (“It'll be nice and sturdy, huh?” Hardison says, and Eliot bristles, because no one is going to have sex on his expensive furniture, no one, and double no one if he’s not even part of it) and Eliot says goodnight to Hardison and goes to shower and give them some privacy. He leans against the cool tile and pretends that he can't hear the murmur of their voices through the wall, and by the time he's out of the bathroom, they've said goodnight and Parker's half asleep, sprawled across the bed like a starfish.

It seems like a good enough reason to take the sofa, but he's made about three steps towards the door when Parker jerks her head up. 

“Come on,” she says, patting the bed next to her, and he does, settling in and staring at the ceiling until long after she's fallen asleep.

* * *

Hardison comes over the next day, and they spend a not-insignificant amount of time debating if Eliot should go to “boys' night” on Tuesday or not. Eliot thinks he should, just to see what they're up to. Parker's less convinced, and Hardison's no help at all and spends most of his time making a series of increasingly awkward sex jokes about breaking in the furniture. 

The final decision—which is made, it has to be admitted, almost entirely by Eliot—is that he'll go, but Hardison has to come over and stay at the house with Parker. Which seems pretty ok, really—means Parker's not on her own, means that if something goes bad, there's backup, and also means that the two of them will get to have some time to themselves for a change. He's spent the last month and change desperately jerking it in the shower most nights, and can't help but feel for Hardison. It's probably where all the shitty jokes furniture-related jokes have come from, too.

Tuesday comes real fast—logically, Eliot knows that there's only two days from Sunday to Tuesday, but it somehow feels like it should’ve been a lot longer. 

Hardison shows up around five, and they have supper together, sitting in the kitchen. It’s almost normal, sitting together, talking about the mark, eating burgers and drinking Hardison’s latest beer—except that Parker’s got her feet in Eliot’s lap, and there’s a vague undercurrent of...something, something that Eliot’s been trying to pin down since Hardison showed up. 

After supper, Hardison finally breaks. “Hey,” he says, “look, are you—are you sure that you should do this thing tonight? I mean, we don’t know what this guy’s up to—”

“Except for getting four women killed,” Parker cuts in, and Hardison nods.

“Except for the dead women,” he says, agreeably, “we don’t know what this guy’s up to, or what he might do. It just doesn’t seem right, you walking in there without a plan.”

It’s almost a relief, after spending the last hour waiting for Hardison to spit out whatever was on his mind, that this is all it is. Eliot leans back in his chair and shakes his head. “He’s not even the one who invited me,” he says, ignoring the niggling feeling that Hardison might have a point. “I don’t even know if he’ll be there. And he seems kinda—”

“Like an asshole?” Hardison says, and Parker says, “Creepy?” 

“He seems,” Eliot says again, ignoring their interruptions, “like the kind of guy who’s using people he’s already got something on. All four of the women were his students—he had easy access, coulda had a lot of leverage on them. But we’ve never seen him with anyone else—no guards, no associates, no nothing.” 

Hardison’s mouth thins in worry, but he nods. “Phone records don’t indicate anyone who might be a partner, either,” he admits, “and the bugs haven’t picked up anything like that.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Eliot says, and Parker and Hardison almost look convinced. 

By eight thirty, the dishes are done and they're all sitting on the sofa. He’s pretty sure that they’re all pretending that they're not just waiting for Eliot's phone to beep that it's nine and time for him to go—him because waiting for something to happen is always worse than it actually happening, Parker and Hardison because they’ve gotta be well past ready for some time alone. 

Parker's snuggled up next to him on the sofa, and he lets himself enjoy it, for a minute, because if—because despite the conversation at supper, he's not sure that this isn’t a trap, that this guy isn’t on to them and ready to remove him from the equation. Somehow feels less wrong to let himself lean on her when they've got the specter of the Grim Reaper over their heads. 

_Thou shalt not covet_ —he thinks, and he stops, because he figured out a long time ago that there wasn’t a god in the world that’d waste time on him, and no memories of childhood services and beatings and prayers is going to change that. He inhales, breathing in the smell of Parker’s shampoo. _What's one more sin, anyhow?_

The phone beeps, and he pulls it out reluctantly and silences it. “Ok,” he says. “You've—if you need me, just call, ok?”

He's not actually sure he could get back, not if he's up against a bunch of dudes in a “workshop”, because these guys are rich enough that there's probably good muscle to be had, even if they haven’t seen it yet. It makes him feel better to say it, though, an unspoken promise that he'll get back to them or die in the process. 

When he stands up, Hardison hugs him, and Eliot waits longer than he should've to push him away.

“I gotta go,” he says.

He's as far as the door, has it half open, and Parker launches herself at him, her arms around his neck, her mouth hot and wet against his, and she kisses him hard and long and then backs off just as suddenly as she'd started, stepping back and almost smiling. His head's light and the world feels far away, and headlights slip down the street.

“Be safe,” she says, and Hardison echoes her. 

“Yeah,” he says, “be safe, man.”

Then Eliot's somehow outside and his feet are moving, and he doesn't let himself look back at the house, look back to where Parker and Hardison are probably already losing themselves in each other.

* * *

The workshop's in a separate building, one that's probably bigger than the house that Eliot grew up in and is definitely bigger than anywhere he's lived since. The whole place is lit up like a Christmas tree, and when he knocks on the door, it opens almost immediately.

“Hey!” says the guy—and Eliot's kicking himself, because he can't even remember the guy's name—and he hands Eliot a beer. “Come on in!”

The door swings shut behind him, and it takes a second for him to realize that this isn't a hit or a trap or anything. It's literally a fucking party, and half the men of the neighborhood are there already, beers in hand, four huge televisions broadcasting multiple sports channels, and catered food spread artfully over a table. He works his way around the room, greeting faces he half recognizes, and, after not terribly long, ducks into the toilet and pulls out his phone.

 _not a hit_ he texts Parker. _home later have a nice nite_

He types, and then deletes, _change the sheets when youre done_ , because—it's none of his damn business if they change the sheets or not, and it certainly won't be the worst thing he's slept on. If he's up all night smelling Hardison and Parker and sex, that's also not the worst night he's ever had, so fuck it.

He doesn't wait for a response, but heads back out and finds that the mood of the party has changed a little.

“What's up, man?” he asks one of the guys. The guy looks at him with glassy, too-bright eyes. “The girls are almost here,” he says, and if this weren’t a job, Eliot would laugh, because it's all so fucking cliché.

“Right on,” he says instead, and grabs another beer. He can hang out for a strip show and eat some more of the fancy appetizers, he figures, then watch whatever they’re watching until it’s reasonable to go home.

Less than ten minutes later, “the girls” show up, and part of him relaxes, because he'd been afraid, a little, that they'd be...actual girls. Young ones. But they’re are all at least plausibly legal-looking, in high heels and plunging necklines and too much makeup. A couple of the guys up front cheer, and before long, most of the women have disappeared, and Eliot realizes that they're not strippers. Or, at least, not just strippers.

One of them comes up to him and drags her long nails over his chest. “What do you say?” she purrs, and Eliot straightens up a little bit, because clearly the only thing to say is—

The host slaps him on the back and laughs too loudly. “He says yes, of course!” and then, more quietly, to Eliot, he says, “All prepaid, all ready to go. And you can do whatever; they'll do some _nasty_ stuff.” 

He shoves Eliot towards the stairs, and Eliot nods, jerkily, and follows the woman to a fucking bedroom, a bedroom in a goddamn workshop to be used by men who've never worked a day in their lives, and he's starting to feel like he might've been happier if this had been a hit. 

Once they're in the room, the woman drops some of the act. “So,” she says, sounding bored, “whatcha wanna do?”

Eliot shrugs, because he's never been the kind of guy who had to pay for sex, and this isn't really— “Uh,” he says, already hating himself, “I dunno. I've never really—”

The woman laughs, and he's reminded, impossibly, of Sophie, putting on her shoes and makeup like armor, then going out and faking it. “Ok, hon,” she says, pushing him back onto the bed, “I'll just lead the way, then, huh?”

He's pretty sure that he can't get out of this, not without setting off some alarms with the men downstairs, and so he nods and lays back and tells himself that he can enjoy this, that this is her job, that he just has to take it easy and not think about what he's missing at home, not think about Hardison and Parker fucking each other into clean white sheets. His stomach tenses. 

“Oh,” she says, noticing and misinterpreting it. “You like that, huh?”

And Eliot grits out an assent, and thinks about sex, thinks about naked bodies and sweat and the slick slide of skin on skin, and she's pulling his pants down and his dick's in her mouth, hot and wet, and he thinks about Parker's mouth on him, and Hardison watching, _smiling_ , and his hips stutter up. 

She makes a pleased sound, and it's too easy to map it onto the last time he heard someone making that sound, to remember Parker pulling him flush against her in bed, and then, half asleep, moaning contentedly. He pulls his thoughts back to the present, to the woman giving him an enthusiastic blowjob, and immediately feels his erection start to wilt. “Aw,” she says, noticing it, “you need something more?”

He can't say no, quite, can't back out of this, but knows full well that this isn't going to do it for him, not like this. 

“Just—” he starts, “just stay there; my wife hates this and—” and she laughs a little bit, and he feels disloyal, even though Parker's not his wife, even though they haven't ever— wouldn't ever—

For a moment, he lets himself think about what it'd be like if they would, if her and Hardison would, and the woman moans. 

“That's more like it,” she says, and Eliot can't find the words to tell her not to talk, because he's caught up in the dizzying fantasy of what it could be, what it would feel like if Parker slid her hand out of his and up his arm, down his torso; what it would be like if he were allowed to watch, even, just to watch, as she and Hardison touched each other. He remembers again the heat of Parker's body against his, and her mouth on his, and the lingering hug Hardison had allowed him before he came out tonight, and—

“I’m gonna come,” he warns the woman who isn't either of them, and then he does, straining against the memory of their bodies against his.

“Who's Parker?” the woman asks as he's pulling his pants back on, and Eliot freezes.

“No one,” he says, and it tastes like betrayal. “No one.”

Eliot sits up and tries not to think. She smiles at him and goes to move into his lap, but he shakes his head and says, awkwardly, “Nah, I’m good.”

“Still getting it at home, huh?” she says, kindly. He finishes pulling up his pants and nods, yeah, and then feels sick. These people all think that he's married to Parker, and they now think that he'd cheat on Parker, like Parker's not good enough for him, like—

He drops back onto the edge of the bed, running his hand roughly through his hair and exhaling a lot more obviously than he meant to. The woman must realize that she's said something wrong, because her face wrinkles slightly, and she comes back to the bed. She sits gingerly next to him and pats his shoulder, and it takes all of his self-control not to jerk away from her now, not to let loose the tight feeling in his throat. 

“It's ok!” she says, too cheerful, and it's really, really not ok; he should have seen this before he went in, should've— “Lots of guys do it, you know? There's the one thing she doesn't like, or—”

It takes him a second to recognize the feeling that rips through him for what it is, and he finally pegs it as shame just as his eyes water and he coughs. 

“Don't,” he says, standing up and stepping away from the bed. “Just—it's fine, it's—”

The woman looks at her hands. “Shit,” she says, quietly, and that about sums it up, doesn’t it.

“How much do they pay you for these gigs, huh?” he asks, because maybe—

She shakes her head, though. “I’m not permitted to disclose the terms of my agreement with Mr. Weisman,” she says, like she's been told this by some kind of lawyer, over and over. “You must really love her, huh?” she says, and she sounds almost wistful, almost sad. 

Eliot looks in his wallet. “Are—are you allowed to accept tips?” he asks, because he'll happily give her every penny he has if he can walk out of this room and pretend that this has never happened. 

Her voice has gone hard again when she says yeah, and he hands her all his cash. 

“Don't say anything about it, ok?” he asks, and hopes that this is enough to buy her silence, or at least to buy her pretending that everything was just fine and normal and completely and totally _fine_.

She looks vaguely hurt. “I wouldn't have,” she says defensively, and Eliot apologizes again and finally ducks out of the room, shirt untucked (which is like a red fucking flag around here; all these assholes wear their shirts tucked in all the time) and hair still in his face. 

He heads back into the bathroom and takes a leak, and scrubs his hands with soap that smells of almonds and honey and foams as it comes out of the dispenser. 

When he comes out, the guy—Weisman, he remembers—comes over and smacks him in the shoulder. “She's got a mouth like a hoover, huh?” he says genially, and Eliot chokes a little bit.

“I—um. It's not—just—my wife—”

The guy laughs, and Eliot sort of wishes he could just punch him.

“I get it!” says the guy. “No one here'll say a word.”

Which isn't what he'd been going for, but it seems close enough, so he nods.

“I gotta get home soon,” he says, and regrets the words as soon as they're out of his mouth, because it can't be later than midnight, and Hardison and Parker are probably still in bed, still—

Weisman nods. “You're not the first guy to have a curfew,” he says, not unkindly, and Eliot takes the out, thanks him and ducks out the door into the blessedly cool night air. He's only a couple houses down from his own house, but it’s nice enough out, and he figures he can take a walk or something.

His phone buzzes. 

_when r u comin home??_

_whenever_ , he sends back, and figures that Parker will tell him when it's clear. 

_ok now then_ says the next message. It's a little later than he'd thought, half past twelve, but he feels bad about it anyhow.

At the house, most of the lights are off, and he pushes open the door cautiously, not sure if—she was just texting him, though; she can't be asleep. They're not in the living room, so he heads upstairs, stopping outside the closed bedroom door. He raises his hand to knock, reconsiders, and picks up his phone again, staring down at it.

The door swings open, and Hardison's standing there, wearing boxers and nothing else, looking pretty pleased with the world.

Eliot immediately turns around, because he's definitely not supposed to see this. 

“Naw, it's ok,” says Hardison, like he's not even bashful about it. 

Which, Eliot supposes, makes sense, since there's no way that Hardison would think that—Eliot pushes the thought out of his mind and carefully doesn't look at Hardison's chest, which he definitely doesn't know is surprisingly muscular for a geeky guy. Or any guy, if he's honest. Not that he would ever think about Hardison like that, he thinks, guiltily, and then remembers that there's a whole roomful of people who think that not only does he think about Parker like that, but they think that she ain’t enough for him. _Like that._

He swallows the burning in his throat and steps into their bedroom—the bedroom, he corrects himself, the bedroom. Parker's sprawled across the bed, lazy and loose-limbed, and Eliot's pretty sure that she's only wearing— _the fucking sheet_ , he's pretty fucking sure that all she's wearing is a goddamn sheet, and he looks at the wall, at the ceiling, at literally anything other than Hardison and Parker, half naked and post coital, chilling right where he sleeps. 

“You guys, uh, have a good time?” he says, shooting for casual and knowing before the words are out of his mouth that he's missing it by a mile. 

“We're glad you're home,” says Parker, and that's the second time in a single night that he's made a woman sound weirdly defensive. He doesn't like the feeling. 

“I can—you—uh, you want me to duck outta here so you can... get dressed?” he says, not sure if he's hoping for a yes or a no. 

Hardison sighs, though, and agrees. “Yeah, just—give us a minute,” he says, and Eliot walks back into the hall and waits, staring at the ugly texturing on the ceiling and not thinking about the other side of the door. 

He very carefully doesn't listen to whatever they're saying, their low voices sounding distant and disappointed. He's pretty sure that he's mapped that onto them himself, though, because they just spent the night getting lucky. 

_You did, too_ , he reminds himself, because it's not fair to begrudge them this. 

“Ok!” Parker hollers, maybe more loudly than was necessary. When he goes back in, they're dressed again, or mostly dressed—Parker's in her sleepwear, boxer shorts and a tank, and Hardison's got his jeans and a teeshirt on, which Eliot tells himself he's relieved about. 

“So—” he starts.

“What happened at boys' night?” Hardison says, leering a little, and Eliot's stomach does a flip like he’s eight years old and riding a death trap at the county fair. 

“Nothing,” Eliot says, not thinking about it. He didn't even find out her goddamn name. “It was just, you know. A buncha guys. Sports. Beer.”

Parker's watching him too closely, but Hardison doesn't seem to realize that he's headed somewhere no one else wants to go. He waggles his eyebrows. “Were there... _ladies_ there?” he says, and Eliot shakes his head in an automatic reflex. 

“No,” he says, immediately. “I mean, yeah. I dunno.”

Hardison looks at him, suddenly serious. “You ok, man?” he asks, and Eliot nods, his heart choking him. 

“Yeah,” he says, “just tired. I’m gonna—” and he jerks his thumb towards the bathroom and disappears into it, grateful to lean against the cool tile. The gratitude lasts about ten seconds, because he can hear hushed voices through the shitty hollow-core door, and then Hardison's stepping into the bathroom, which suddenly feels much, much smaller than the advertised six by eight. 

“Hey,” Hardison says, and Eliot really wishes he'd taken a leak or something, because getting caught slumping against the wall isn't great. 

“You wanna get outta my bathroom?” Eliot grumbles, and Hardison crosses his arms over his chest and watches him. 

“You wanna tell me what's going on?” he asks, and Eliot shakes his head, because no, he really doesn't. 

“There is something going on, though,” says Hardison, and it’s not really a question. Eliot sort of wishes that whoever talked to Hardison about paying attention to people's nonverbal cues had maybe skipped a few lessons. It feels like he should send Sophie some sort of rude postcard.

Hardison's still staring at him, waiting for an answer, and Eliot shrugs.

“It's fine,” he says. “There were some—”

“Strippers?” Hardison offers, when it's clear Eliot's not going to keep going. 

“No.” Eliot says, and he knows his voice is too flat and he can't bring himself not to. “Prostitutes.”

Hardison looks worried. “Were they—shit, were they kids?” he asks, and Eliot can see that Hardison’s already trying to form a new plan. 

He shakes his head, hard. “No,” he says, “just...women. Adult ones.”

“Ok, so what, man?” says Hardison. “You know, it's nothing—”

“It's new for me, Hardison,” he bites out, and Hardison must realize what he's saying, because he pulls back a little bit, and Eliot relaxes a little. More than he should have, because he says the next words without thinking. “And she—I dunno, she reminded me of Sophie, kinda, and—”

Hardison laughs. “Come on, man, we'd all hit Sophie, you don't gotta feel bad about that.”

“I'd totally hit Sophie,” Parker calls from the other side of the door. Eliot sighs and resigns himself to the fact that he's not going to be allowed to quietly lose his shit in privacy. 

“That's not what we mean, Parker,” he says. 

The door swings open and Parker sticks her head into the bathroom. “We're not talking about having sex with Sophie?” she asks, and—well, ok, that is what he meant, so never mind, he guesses. 

“You don't screw your team, Parker,” he says, and immediately regrets it. 

“Hardison and I do,” she says, sounding hurt. He can feel the hole that he's in getting deeper, and he has no idea how to climb out of it.

“That's different,” he says, “you don't—that's—”

They're both looking at him expectantly, and he's got nothing, but the words just sort of fall out of his mouth. “I called her your name,” he says, guiltily, and both Parker and Hardison freeze. “I’m sorry,” he says, not able to look at either of them. “I’m gonna go sleep on the couch.” 

Parker and Hardison stay frozen. He sighs and scoots around them, carefully not touching either of them despite the close quarters of the bathroom, and heads for the door, uncomfortable clothes be damned. He hasn't gotten especially far when Parker's voice stops him. 

“We said no couches,” she says, softly, and when he turns around, she and Hardison are sitting on the bed, staring at him. 

“I know,” he said, “but this is—you know. I get it, that you don't wanna—”

“Eliot,” says Hardison, still serious, “it's fine.” 

Parker pats the bed next to her. “Say goodnight to Hardison and come to bed,” she says, sounding the same way she does every night. 

Eliot stops at the foot of the bed, still not sure that he can meet their eyes. “You sure about this?” he asks, and when they nod, he climbs into bed. Hardison slips off as Eliot gets on, then pulls the sheets up over Eliot and Parker. He walks around to Parker and kisses her, and Eliot looks away, staring intently at the wall, unable to hear anything but the soft wetness of their mouths. Finally Hardison backs away, and Eliot closes his eyes, relieved. 

“I'll see myself out,” says Hardison, and, before Eliot has a chance to say anything, Hardison kisses him, too, gently and briefly, their lips sliding softly together, and Eliot's pretty sure that this has to be some sort of a dream, because he's just told Hardison that he thought about Hardison's girlfriend while having sex with a hooker, and then Hardison's mouth is gone and Hardison pushes Eliot's hair off of his face and says, “Sweet dreams.”

Eliot's words are caught in his throat, and by the time he finds them, he can hear Hardison heading down the stairs.

“Sweet dreams,” he says, belatedly, and Parker rolls so she's pressed against his back, drags one of her hands up his stomach so that it's pressed over his chest.

“Sweet dreams,” she says, softly, and her breath is warm enough against his neck that he shivers. He's pretty sure she's asleep within moments, but he lays awake for what feels like hours, replaying the evening over and over, trying to figure out what he did wrong.

* * *

His senses are flooded with the rusty smell of death and copper and meat over a fire. The bat connects, and Hardison’s head makes a wet, hollow noise, and someone says, “Now that one.” Parker's mouth quirks in confusion as he slices into her, his knife taking her apart as easily as it had a deer, and he reaches in, and—

It takes a moment for the taste of iron to clear his mouth, and then the scream rips out of his chest and he's heaving, on his knees on the floor, eyes squeezed shut, terrified to see what he's done.

“Shh,” Parker says, her hand on his back, and he grabs blindly for her other hand, holding it too tightly. When he's sure he's not going to vomit, he rocks back and lets her pull him against her. He’s still clutching her hand.

“Sorry,” he mumbles against her breast, too relieved to feel embarrassed. “Sorry I woke you.” 

She strokes his hair. “It's ok,” she whispers, “you're ok.” 

By the time they climb back in bed, his limbs are frozen up, but Parker stands smoothly, effortlessly, and hauls him up, using her body to leverage him off the floor.

“Come on,” she says, and he makes himself unclamp his fingers from her hand, immediately regretting it. The room wavers, and he forces himself to move anyhow, trying to think of anything but the feel of his hands in still-warm bodies, of the way that meat gives beneath teeth.

Parker pulls him down to the bed, then weaves herself around him, his head cradled on her arm, her leg draped over his legs. It feels like he should tell her she doesn't have to, that he's fine, but her hands are gentle and the bed is warm, and he closes his eyes against the encroaching dawn and, just this once, lets himself cling to her until he falls asleep.

When he wakes up, the sun's high in the sky, and he's still sleeping on Parker, who's awake and talking quietly to Hardison. 

“You're up!” she says, brightly, and Eliot winces.

“How long've you been waitin' for me to get up?” he asks, reluctantly, already pretty sure that he doesn't want the answer. 

“Morning, Eliot,” says Hardison, and last night comes back. Last night, _before_ the nightmare-memory that still feels too close. His heart jumps in his chest.

“Hey, Hardison,” he says. 

Parker shrugs. “I’ve been up a while,” she says, “but I called Hardison and watched Danger Mouse, so it was fine.”

Eliot pushes himself up, muscles protesting. “You want me to make breakfast?” he asks, because it's none of his business what they're talking about, and after sleeping on Parker all damn night, it seems like the least he can do.

“Pancakes?” Parker says, hopefully, and Hardison laughs. Eliot nods and rolls out of bed, brushes his teeth, and doesn't think about what it feels like to have Hardison’s mouth pressed against his.

He makes the pancakes, adding chocolate chips to Parker's, and makes sausage, and squeezes some oranges, and by the time Parker comes downstairs, the table's set and the food's ready to go, and Eliot's starting to feel a little less off balance. 

Parker slips into the kitchen on ninja feet and has a bite of pancake in her mouth before he's even realized she's there. 

They eat in silence. It feels like he should say something, should bring up last night and apologize, but also can't help but feel that he shouldn't—impose, shouldn't push, shouldn't— _make her regret her kindness_ , he thinks.

“How's Hardison?” he asks, finally, and immediately regrets that, too, because Parker has to know—she'd been right next to them, and if listening to her and Hardison had been loud for Eliot, he can only imagine what it was like for her when Hardison had kissed him.

But Parker grins. “Good,” she says, “he has his elf game thing today. He said to have a good breakfast.”

Her words feel strangely loaded, but it's enough to put them back on more or less even footing, and by the time Parker's finished her pancakes (five of them; she's a goddamn bottomless pit) it feels like the world is more or less back to normal. 

“Thanks,” Parker says, and she presses her mouth to his, syrup-sticky and tasting like oranges and chocolate. “I’m gonna go work in the garden for a while,” she says when she pulls away, and Eliot is breathless. She's looking at him expectantly, though, so he nods and watches her disappear out the back door.

Parker's humming tunelessly outside, looking happy as she pokes ineffectively at the garden. It feels wrong to be inside while she’s working—even if, if he’s honest, it’s more like “working”, especially at this time of year—but he figures that he may as well be useful. He heads out, too, pulling out the lawn mower and pulling off his shirt, pushing the mower up and down the yard, letting muscle memory take over until it's just the late summer sun and the smell of grass and the way his cotton undershirt clings to him, the way his shorts brush his legs. When he reaches the end of the lawn, he stops and looks back to the house, where Parker's still cheerfully poking at the dirt, surrounded by a halo of blonde hair. 

He pushes the mower back into the shed and goes to check on Parker, who hops to her feet. 

“Look,” she says, sounding delighted, “it's growing!” She points to a small green tomato clinging to one the tomato plants Eliot had brought from his house. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, and when she kisses him, he has to blink against the brightness of the sun.

* * *

Things seem to be almost normal, after that. They don't talk about Eliot waking up screaming, or sex with Sophie, or sex with prostitutes who remind them of Sophie, or Hardison tucking them in. For two days, everything is as close to normal as it gets, the two of them rattling around this huge house, Hardison’s voice echoing in the bedroom in the evenings. 

The third night, Eliot wakes up in the middle of the night. He's pressed up against Parker, for a change, and she's asleep, moving gently against him, and his dick is so hard that he rocks against her before he realizes what he's doing. She moans, softly, and it's enough to jolt him fully awake. He jerks away from her like he's been burnt, pulling back fast enough that she wakes up with an unhappy noise. 

“Wha’s wrong?” she slurs.

He winces guiltily, settling himself on the edge of bed, far away from Parker. “Nothing,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Come back, then,” she says. “It's cold without you.” 

The bed shifts, and her hand lands on his arm. He freezes. “No,” he says, “I gotta—” He trails off, hoping that this will be enough and she’ll let him up, but her hand stays where it is, and she’s quiet, waiting.

His face heats up. “I was—pressed—Parker, I gotta—” he says, trying to explain. 

Parker makes an annoyed noise. “It doesn't matter, Eliot,” she says, and he's pretty sure that she can't possibly know what he's trying not to say, because it damn well does matter. “Just come back to bed,” she says, and Eliot shakes his head.

“Parker,” he says, “I was all pressed up against you, and you were _moving_ , and now I’m—” The words spill out in a rush, and Parker cuts him off halfway through, pressing her lips against his softly. 

As soon as he stops trying to talk, she pulls back. “It's fine,” she says again. Eliot shakes his head and scrambles off the bed, shaking her hand off of him as gently as he can. 

“I'll be back,” he says, and all but runs the five feet to the bathroom, away from anywhere he could accidentally let himself rub off against his friend's ass. Once the thought is in his mind, he can’t stop thinking about it, about Parker’s ass, about Hardison’s ass, about Hardison’s soft kisses and Parker’s wet mouth, and he jerks himself off in their fancy bathroom, then slumps to the floor, where he sits until he's sure—really, really sure—that Parker's asleep.

He finally slides back into bed an hour later, and when Parker mumbles sleepily, he makes himself roll away. In the morning, he waits for—something, but he gets off easy, for a change. Parker doesn't mention anything, and he’s sure as hell not going to bring it up.

* * *

Hardison comes over for movies that night. Eliot debates just ordering takeout for a change, but Parker lobbies hard for steaks (“And other stuff, I guess,” she says, when he says, “Steaks and what, Parker?”) and he can't bring himself to say no to her. Plus they've got this expensive damn grill; may as well put it to use.

So he does, grilling steaks and tomatoes and asparagus and garlic bread. Hardison shows up just as the grill gets lit and kisses Parker enthusiastically enough that Eliot has to look away, unable to watch them without thinking of—he bites his lip, hard, and disappears out the back door without saying anything. He tosses the steaks on the grill and glares at it, which is somehow also unsatisfying. 

He can hear Parker and Hardison talking in the kitchen—not loud enough that he can understand them, just the rise and fall of their voices, Parker's soft bark of laughter. It's embarrassing to realize that he feels _left out_ , and he reminds himself for what has to be the hundredth time since this fucking job started that this isn't his life, and this isn't his relationship, and the fastest way to fuck up his life is going to be to forget that. 

A piece of asparagus slips between the grates of the grill and he glares harder.

“You trying to cook that meat with your angry face?” Hardison says, coming into the backyard, beer in hand. Eliot shakes his head and tries to look like he hasn’t been marinating in self-pity. Parker slips up behind him, draping her arms awkwardly over his hips. She nuzzles his neck, just below his ear, and it takes all his self-control not to push her away. Not to relax into it. 

“Poor cranky Eliot,” she says, and bites his earlobe, hard enough that the sting makes the spike of arousal that shoots through him that much stronger.

“Parker,” he warns, quietly, and she pulls him away from the grill, turning him so he's facing her, and then kisses him gracelessly. Eliot's eyes fly to Hardison, who's watching them with a strange look on his face, and Eliot pushes Parker away as subtly as he can, the sudden feeling that all his work at being normal is being thrown out the window. 

It’s another minute before she steps out of his space. “I’m gonna go get a drink,” she says softly, and he's not sure why that makes him feel guilty, but it does. He curls his toes against the ground. 

“Sorry, man,” he says to Hardison as soon as Parker's safely on the other side of the door. “I don't—we don't—I don't know—”

Hardison shakes his head. “It's fine,” he says, not sounding upset. “I was kinda enjoying the show.” Then he raises his now-empty beer bottle and follows Parker inside, and Eliot is left alone with the grill and the feeling that the world’s slipping sidewise. 

The rest of supper is normal, or as normal as things ever are. They polish off a ridiculous amount of steak, Hardison goes through two beers and then switches to his beloved (and disgusting) orange soda, and Parker seems restless and twitchy. 

“Movie time?” she says when they're done, and Eliot nods and waits for her to demand that he make popcorn. She doesn't, though, just goes into the living room and flops down. He settles in next to her, obediently, and then, weirdly, Hardison sits down next to Eliot, just wedges himself into the space there and drops his arm along back of the sofa, so close Eliot’s neck that he can feel the heat radiating off of them. Eliot knows that there's no way out of this—no polite way, anyhow—and freezes, trying to get comfortable, trying to minimize contact with either of them. 

He manages the whole movie like that, and, when it's over, shifts forward, thinking that maybe he can move to the armchair, or the floor, or—

“Hey,” says Hardison, and Eliot jerks to look at him.

“You know,” Hardison says, “we don't—if you don't want this, we don't have to do it.”

Eliot squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “Do what?” he asks. 

Hardison wraps one of his hands around the back of Eliot's neck and kisses him, deep and intense and Eliot feels like he's drowning, and when Hardison finally, finally lets go of him, he blinks, dizzy and breathless. 

“What?” he says stupidly, painfully aware that Hardison is watching him. Before he manages to say anything else, Parker cups his chin and turns his head so he’s facing her. It's less shocking that she kisses him, both because Hardison just did it and because Parker's been pretending to kiss him for the job for weeks, now, but it doesn't feel any less desperate, and he's not any less breathless when she finally pulls away. 

They're both watching him, now. He stands up and steps away from the sofa, his hands in his hair. It feels like he should close his eyes, spare himself having to see whatever’s on their faces, but he owes them this.

“You can say no,” Hardison says, his voice even. It feels like something's tearing open Eliot’s chest.

“You don't—” Eliot’s voice about breaks, and he tries it again. “You don't have to—this—”

Parker pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around her knees, settling herself so Hardison’s arm fits neatly onto her shoulders. Eliot lets himself drop into the armchair, settling forward with his elbows on his knees. _Like you’re ready to bolt_ , he thinks, even though he knows he wouldn’t. Won’t. 

“Ok, right,” says Hardison, “we don't have to, but we'd kinda gotten the impression that—maybe you wanted to?”

Eliot's heart is jackrabbiting in his throat, and he feels like he might choke on it. 

“Yeah,” he croaks out, “but—” Parker puts her head down on her knees, and he blinks away the memory of Hardison tucking them in, curled against each other, and doesn’t let himself think of what he's losing. “Just 'cause I want something doesn't mean—I know it ain't my place,” he says, finally, and he sits back in the chair, still watching them with each other. 

“Oh,” Hardison says, sounding sad. Eliot lets himself close his eyes, finally; lets himself not have to watch things fall apart. “Just outta interest,” Hardison says, still quiet, “what do you think your place is?”

Eliot shakes his head.

“Eliot?” Parker says, and he makes himself sit up straight, open his eyes, and look at them. 

“I dunno,” he admits, finally. 

Hardison rolls his eyes a little bit. Maybe he should’ve booked it when he had the chance.

“What if we wanted this to be your place?” Parker says. Hardison takes her hand, and Eliot can't stop staring at it.

He shakes his head again. “You know, I—I ain't the kinda guy that—” But he can't bring himself to say all the words, to admit out loud what he's known to be true for the better part of twenty years. 

“Kind of guy who what?” Hardison says, gently, and somehow that trips him from being sad to being angry, the hot roil of it washing through him. 

He looks away from them, stands up and paces, looking out the window into the garden where Parker had found her tiny tomato earlier. This isn’t what he’d expected, and it _hurts_. He tries to make himself think about something else, but what he comes back to is knives, and slicing tomatoes, and the way a knife can cut through flesh, and how they can be so sharp that you don’t even feel them until it’s too late, until you’re already bleeding.

“The kind of guy who what?” says Parker, softly, almost from next to him. She reaches out and grabs his hand, awkwardly, suspending it between them, and he looks down at it in confusion.

“I’m not—” he starts, and he chokes, a little, his throat suddenly thick and his mouth dry. “I’m not the kind of guy who has a place,” he admits. “Guys like me don't—we don't retire, we don't have friends, we don't have families. This is the closest thing I've had to a family, all right, and I’m not gonna fuck it up by—by—” 

Parker pulls him away from the window, back towards the sofa, and he lets her settle him against the cushions, aching inside. Neither of them has said anything, though, and he knows he has to finish this. 

“I’m not gonna fuck it up by—” he starts again, and stops. 

“By what?” Hardison asks patiently.

“By startin' some kind of relationship here! Or by letting my dick get the better of me, or by fucking things up between the two of you, or—this—” Not sure what else he can say to make them understand, he sputters to a stop, the words sticking in his throat.

“What if it wasn't fucking it up?” Parker asks after a long beat. 

“What if it just made it better?” Hardison says. 

Eliot feels feverish and exhausted, suddenly. “Yeah,” he says, when it's clear that they expect an answer of him, “but what if it does?”

Hardison almost laughs, and Parker pokes him, swiftly, hard enough that Eliot can feel it. 

“It won't,” she says, sounding like Parker on a job, not Parker in the living room. Sounding like she’s already planned this and figured out all the possibilities.

Eliot shakes his head.

“But it _hasn't_ ,” Hardison says, and he starts listing off on his fingers. “We see you every day. You sleep at our apartment half the time. You have your own bedroom and your own key. We’re just—seeing if you wanna ditch the bedroom, maybe.”

“But,” says Eliot, and Parker's hand twines through his hair.

“We've always been a team,” she says, “the three of us. This isn't any different.”

It feels like he should argue, but Hardison's got his fingers laced through Eliot's, and Parker presses her lips against Eliot’s, and he knows he’s not strong enough to say no, not even to put up a token protest. When she pulls away, Eliot looks at Hardison, who shrugs. 

“I really was enjoying the show,” he says. 

Eliot looks between them and pulls Parker in closer, pushing himself back into the cushion so that she has more room. “Please,” he says. His mouth is dry, and he can’t let himself think about this, because he won’t—he can’t— “Let me—I wanna see you,” he says, eventually, not entirely sure what he’s asking for. 

It’s apparently enough that they catch his meaning. They lean in, Parker sprawled half across Eliot’s lap, and when they kiss, he can’t tear his eyes away. He’s seen them before, sneaking glances when they thought he wasn’t paying attention, or when everyone was too tired or relieved to care, but he’s never let himself stare in desperate, mute arousal before this. He’s never seen the way that Parker gently bites Hardison’s lower lip, or the way that Hardison uses his tongue to map her mouth, dragging slow and wet against her. Parker lazily drapes her arm around him, and he can hardly stand being this close to them, close enough that they have to be able to hear his ragged breathing, his pounding heart. The thought of it makes him dizzy. 

Finally they pull apart, and they look at Eliot with huge, blown-out pupils. They look wrecked, like this is hitting them the same way it is him. He wonders if it’s always like that, for them, if every time, they’re overwhelmed all over again with how unbelievably fucking lucky they are. It would be, he thinks, if he were in their shoes. It would always be like that.

“Like that?” Hardison says, sounding so serious that Eliot almost laughs. _Yes, like that_ , he thinks. _Like anything you’ll let me have_. The words won’t come, though, so he just nods, hoping that they’ll understand. 

“Eliot,” says Parker. “Come upstairs with us.” 

She stands up, twining her fingers around his as she goes, pulling him after her. Not that he resists.

The bedroom looks the same way it had this morning. It’s quiet and dark, the curtains still closed, the blue comforter still piled atop white sheets. It still smells like Parker’s apple shampoo. It feels entirely different, though, like he’s walking into somewhere he’s never been before, and he pauses just inside the door, dropping Parker’s hand and watching as she and Hardison move easily into the space. 

“Hey,” he says, and they both look at him. “Are you—you sure?” 

A look that he doesn’t understand passes between them. 

“Yes,” says Parker.

“We’ve been sure for a long time,” Hardison admits, looking at him meaningfully, and Eliot nods, because it seems like the sort of admission that deserves a response, and he’s not sure that he can manage anything else. 

Feels like he oughta try, though. “I’ve wanted to,” he says. “For a long time.”

Parker launches herself at him, crossing the room in two long steps and leaping up. It’s only sheer force of habit that he catches her, her legs wrapped around his waist, her chest pressed against him, and she loops her arms around his neck. “We’re glad,” she whispers to the skin just below his ear. “We didn’t know if you wanted—”

Her voice trails off, and she wiggles against him, settling herself closer to him, and if he weren’t holding her, he’d shift uncomfortably. He is holding her, though, so he stays still. “I do,” Eliot says, and meets Hardison’s eyes. “Always have.”

“What do you want?” Hardison asks, and Parker’s never been this heavy before, never made Eliot feel like he was going to fall to his knees. He forces himself not to hold her too tight, and Hardison’s still there, waiting.

It takes longer to pull the words together than it should. “I want to watch you,” Eliot says.

He can _feel_ Parker shiver against him, and she tightens her legs around his waist. “Not the whole time,” she says. 

“Just for a few minutes,” he says. “Please. I’ve wanted—”

Hardison presses himself against Parker’s back and meets Eliot’s lips over her shoulder, kissing him hard enough that their teeth clash. Carefully balancing Parker, Eliot grabs Hardison’s hip with a free hand, trying to pull him closer, and Parker wiggles again. 

“C’mon, babe,” Hardison says, backing away. Parker easily unwinds herself from Eliot and drapes an arm over Hardison’s shoulder, dragging him down so that she can kiss him, shimmying her body against him. 

It’s like staring into a fire late at night, when it feels simultaneously dangerous and comforting, and even after you look away, the flicker of flame is burnt into your brain. Eliot drops to his knees, not uncomfortably, and just stares, letting the heat between them sear him. 

They’re gorgeous together. Parker’s fingers have twisted into the hem of Hardison’s teeshirt and she’s working it off of him, dragging it up his torso. Hardison’s stomach ripples, and Eliot starts to look away before remembering that he’s allowed to watch, this time. As if proving the point, Hardison and Parker pull apart long enough for her to drag his shirt off completely, and when he comes back into view, Hardison’s watching Eliot watch them.

“You know you can join in any time you want, right?” he says, and Eliot nods, but doesn’t make any attempt to move. Parker drops her shirt on the floor next to Hardison’s. Eliot stares at the pile of fabric, guilt and arousal tangling in him. 

“Eliot,” says Parker, softly, “take off your shirt.” 

He does it without thinking, peeling it off as fast as he can and letting it puddle in front of him. 

Hardison’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes on Eliot. “If he wants to watch,” Hardison says, “we should probably give him a show, huh?” 

Goosebumps prickle Eliot’s skin. 

“Guess so!” Parker says, brightly, and pushes Hardison down onto the bed. She drops her pants, white cotton panties stark against her skin, and then climbs onto the bed, too, straddling Hardison easily. Her hips twitch and she makes a soft sound at the back of her throat as she settles against him, rocking herself against the bulge in his jeans. 

It’s only a vague sense of shame that keeps Eliot from shifting, from trying to move so that his dick, already half hard, gets some friction, gets something. He’s almost panting, his breaths short and shaky, and it makes him lightheaded.

“Hey,” says Hardison, “why don’t you come over here? It’s a better view, at least.” 

Parker’s started to unbutton Hardison’s pants, and Eliot manages to clear his throat, just barely. “Wait,” he says, and they freeze. “Let me.”

The words hang in the air for a beat, and then Hardison swings his feet back over the edge of the bed. He nods. 

Eliot gives it a moment, waits to see if Hardison has any directions, and, when he doesn’t, he does the only thing that seems appropriate—he drops from his knees to all fours. It should feel ridiculous, degrading, but his dick is hard and he’s light headed with want, wanting this, wanting them. And they’re watching him, waiting patiently. He bows his head, unable to meet their eyes, and crawls the few feet to the bed. Crawls to Hardison and settles himself between Hardison’s splayed knees.

Without looking up, Eliot leans in, slowly, and lets himself nuzzle against Hardison. When he groans eagerly, Eliot pushes a little harder, opening his mouth over Hardison’s fabric-covered cock and exhaling into it. The noise that Hardison makes sends a shiver through Eliot, and he does it again, dragging his tongue over the roughness of Hardison’s pants, letting his spit saturate them as Hardison breathes shakily.

“Take his pants off,” Parker says, her voice breathy. Eliot risks a glance up as Hardison stands, and all the breath rushes out of him. Parker’s curled around on the bed so that she can watch them, and with Hardison’s body out of the way, Eliot has a clear view of her hand moving slowly inside her underwear. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. 

She must realize where he’s looking, because she drags down her panties and changes the angle, then gasps softly. “ _Oh_ ,” she says, and Hardison looks, too. “I _like_ when you watch me.” The way she says it makes it sound like she’s telling a secret she hadn’t realized she had until now. 

“I like watchin’,” Eliot admits, the words slipping out, slow as molasses and somehow too fast for him to stop himself. He finally caves and adjusts his dick in his pants, pressing his palm flat against himself and breathing deeply. He pushes hard enough that it edges into just the wrong side of pain, and he clings to that. 

Hardison’s hand lands on Eliot’s shoulder, and he freezes, every muscle gone tense, hand against his erection, eyes still on Parker. He makes himself close his eyes, because if this—if he’s crossed a line, somehow, he has to be able to—

“Eliot,” Hardison starts, it’s easy enough to tell that whatever he’s about to say isn’t anything Eliot doesn’t want to hear. “Give her what she asked for.”

Parker’s breath catches, and Eliot shifts on his knees, turning himself so he’s facing Hardison. So that Parker can see everything they’re doing. Carefully, Eliot unfastens Hardison’s pants, then drags the zipper down with his teeth and eases the pants over Hardison’s slim hips. The pants drop to the floor, and Eliot sets back on his heels a bit.

It’s not the first time he’s seen Hardison in boxers—far from it—but it doesn’t feel like he’s ever appreciated it enough before, and he takes a moment to just stare. 

“Jesus,” Hardison says. 

Eliot glances at Parker, not sure if what he’s about to do is ok, and she nods permission at him. She’s still moving her hand, her hips hitching up a little as she does, her underwear around her knees. Her tongue slips out and wets her lips, and Eliot mimics her, tracing his lips with his tongue as he kneels forward again. He finds the wet spot on Hardison’s boxers immediately and licks at it, over and over again. It’d be teasing if he weren’t so desperate, if he weren’t beyond fucking ready for them. 

_You’ve been ready for years_ , he thinks to himself, and he grabs Hardison’s hips, pulling him closer. He’s never given anyone a blowjob through their shorts before, but there’s a first time for everything, and it’s clear that neither he nor Hardison’s going to do a damn thing about the boxers until Parker tells them to. 

Eliot stops licking and drops his mouth onto Hardison’s cock, pulling the first couple inches, fabric and all, into his mouth, breathing deeply. Hardison fucking _whimpers_ , and Parker whimpers in response, and it’s all Eliot can do not to beg for this, to be allowed to—to _anything_ , anything at all. 

Parker’s hand threads through his hair and he freezes, obediently. Waiting. 

“Take them off,” Parker says, and Eliot can’t help the way he shakes when she says that. There’s no way they didn’t notice, but he can’t bring himself to care, because he’s slowly, slowly slipping Hardison’s boxers down and pulling out his cock. It’s long and hard and Eliot’s pretty sure he’s never wanted anything as bad as he wants this. 

“Can I—?” he rasps out, unable to even finish the question, his cheeks flushed and body burning. He looks up for the answer, though, needs to see that Hardison’s ok with this. 

“Please,” Hardison says, cupping his hand around Eliot’s cheek, so gently that it feels to Eliot like he might break. Break from Parker’s breathy moans on the bed, and the soft, slick sound of her fingers inside of herself, and the smell of Hardison’s cock, and Hardison’s hand cupped around his cheek like this is everything he’s ever wanted. 

Eliot’s pretty sure that this is everything he’s ever wanted.

He swallows Hardison’s cock with no fucking around, just drops his head and doesn’t stop until Hardison hits the back of his throat, and Eliot swallows convulsively. The noise that Hardison makes is absolutely obscene, and Eliot squirms, simultaneously grateful for and desperate to avoid the friction from his pants. After a minute, Eliot pulls back enough to let himself breathe and wraps his hand around the base of Hardison’s cock, working his hand in time with the pull of his mouth. 

Hardison’s hand is still there, cupped around Eliot’s face, and he can feel how much it’s taking Hardison not to move. Eliot wraps his hand around Hardison’s wrist, then moves Hardison’s hand to Eliot’s head, tangling it in his hair. 

“Go ahead,” Eliot whispers. Parker moans softly, and Hardison responds by clenching his fist, tight enough that pain sparkles behind Eliot’s eyelids and his dick throbs painfully. Hardison tugs, gently, and Eliot leans forward, his lips still around Hardison’s cock, letting Hardison set the pace, letting him move Eliot’s head where he wants it to go. All things considered, Hardison is remarkably careful, never letting himself thrust too far, never pulling Eliot’s hair too hard, and it’s so fucking easy, so fucking good. 

Hardison’s hips are stuttering forward, starting to lose the rhythm they’d found, and Parker’s mouth is suddenly against Eliot’s ear. 

“He’s going to come,” she says, and he thinks she means it as a warning, but he lets himself wrap his arm around the back of Hardison’s thighs, keeping him there, making sure he doesn’t pull away. “ _Oh_ ,” Parker breathes, and she leans against his back, putting her face right up next to his. 

The way she’s laying on him restricts his movements, and his arm around Hardison’s thighs restricts them more, but he can’t bring himself to care, trapped between the two of them. 

“Eliot,” Hardison says, and this time it’s definitely a warning. Eliot holds on and works his tongue against the underside of Hardison’s cock, again and again, and Hardison comes, filling Eliot’s mouth, his grip on Eliot’s hair so tight that Eliot’s vision whites out as he swallows.

Hardison’s legs are shaking, and when Eliot pulls off his dick—slowly, and carefully, and neatly—he collapses onto the bed. 

“We should get on the bed, now,” says Parker, still warm against Eliot’s back, and he nods dumbly. Before he can stand, though, she unexpectedly slides her hand across his hip and drags her hand over his cock, palming it through his pants. He makes himself stay still, let her explore whatever she wants to explore. 

His heart is beating so hard that he feels like it might tear free of his chest, but he drops his head and makes himself stay still as she—he’s not even sure. He’d call it teasing, the slow, steady movement of her hand over his dick, her thumb over the head, her fingers curling under his balls, all weirdly muted by the fabric of his pants—but she’s so methodical and serious about it, like he’s a lock she’s never seen before. Like she’s trying to learn him so she can crack him open.

“Hey,” Hardison says, interrupting. Parker freezes, and Eliot’s almost grateful for the reprieve, however brief, from the slow torture of her touch. “Y’all oughta come up on the bed for reals,” he says. 

“Yeah,” he says, slowly getting off his knees. Parker slides gracefully off his back and he immediately wishes he’d stayed where he was, stayed where they were touching him. By the time he’s standing, they’re already on the bed. Eliot stands there for a minute, watching, gaping at them like an idiot and unable to stop, because he never in a million years would’ve thought he’d be allowed to see this, and now he wants to make sure he sees all of it. If this is the only chance he gets, he thinks, he wants to be sure that—he wants to remember all of it.

They fit together neatly, Hardison still sprawled on his back and already half hard again; Parker with her leg draped over him, her cunt pressed against his thigh, slowly rocking against him. Eliot tries not to shiver at the thought of her doing that to him, of what it would be like to have her pressed against him like that.

It must show on his face, or Hardison can see only too clearly where Eliot’s looking, because he says, “She’s so hot, Eliot, and so wet. You sure you just wanna watch? Because it seemed like it worked out pretty good when you weren’t just watching.”

The answer catches in Eliot’s throat, and he swallows hard. “I want—” he says, and stops, but they’re both staring at him, waiting. He flushes, aware that he’s giving away too much and unable to stop himself. “I want more than that,” he says. “Tell me—tell me what I can do.” 

In all the times he’s thought about this—which isn’t, if he’s honest, a lot of times; not for lack of desire, but because he ain’t about to start dwelling on something that he knows he’s never gonna have—it’s never been like this, never with them staring at him as they rub against each other, waiting to find out what he might want. 

He knows better than to offer that up. There’s no good way to say _everything_ and _anything_ and _a house and a dog and to wake up to this every morning_ —no way that he can ask for the impossible—and so he says nothing, waiting for them. “Please,” he adds, belatedly. “Please tell me what you want. What I can do.”

“Anything,” Hardison says, easily, and Eliot thinks that he sees Parker’s eyes narrow a little at Hardison, and it drops the stomach right out of him. 

She doesn’t say anything, though, just smiles and stretches her hand out to him. “Come here,” she says, and he does, grateful that she’s not going to start listing the things they don’t want from him. There’s not a lot of places for him to go, though, and he perches awkwardly on the edge of the bed next to Hardison, watching him rub circles on Parker’s shoulder.

Her hand is still suspended in the air, like she’s waiting for him, and he’s not sure what to do with that, so he takes it, and now they’re both holding their hands in the air. It doesn’t seem like either of them is sure what to do, and Eliot watches their hands warily. After a beat, Hardison starts fucking laughing, then wraps his hand around the back of Eliot’s neck and pulls him down.

It’s somehow still shocking when Hardison’s lips meet his, and Eliot remembers Hardison tucking him in, remembers the soft, dry press of lips, and this is somehow nothing like that and everything like that. His mouth parts automatically when Hardison’s tongue brushes over his lips, and he’s almost grateful that he’s still half upright, because he’s pretty sure that if there were any friction, any friction at all, against his cock, he’d be coming already, just from this.

As it is, though, nothing’s touching him, save for where his fingers are still twined with Parker’s; where his lips are pressed against Hardison’s. He can feel Parker hovering, watching them, and he tightens his fingers around hers, not sure how he can ask for—how he can ask for anything, really, when they’re already—

“Eliot,” says Parker, interrupting his thoughts. He half pulls away from Hardison, planting his free elbow to support himself, and looks over at her, waiting. Hardison catches Eliot’s neck, licking a hot stripe up his carotid. “I think you should fuck me,” she says, and his elbow damn near gives out, making him drop his head to Hardison’s shoulder. He almost misses the rest of what she says: “while Hardison fucks you.” 

He can feel the way that Hardison’s breath catches at the idea. “Christ,” Eliot mutters. “We just—can—” There’s not really a polite way to ask if a guy can get it up again that fast, but Hardison must hear the question anyhow, because he rolls, a little, and Hardison’s hard cock connects with Eliot’s hip. 

“That answer your question?” Hardison says, sounding smug. “Now how about you take your damn pants off?” 

Eliot stands up reluctantly. “Yeah,” he says. They’re gazing at him expectantly, and he shifts a little. It’s not that they’ve never seen him half naked before, or that he’s tried to hide anything, but it’s a different thing, sometimes. Looking at a map of a place you’ve never been is different from walking around on it, and he knows that the place that shows up in the constellations of scars ain’t a great place to be. It takes him a moment to get his shit together, to remind himself that they’ve been with him—not _with_ him, but with him—for a long damn time, and that this—or the scars, anyhow—probably aren’t going to be the thing that changes that.

The rest of it—the—the bed, the way they’re watching him, the fact that he’s pretty sure that his desire is so clear that they can see right through him—that might change things some. 

He makes himself stop thinking about it and unbuttons his pants, dropping them and letting the fabric pool around his ankles, then drops his boxers and steps out of both. It feels less weird once he’s out of them—more exposed, maybe, but less weird. 

“Where do you want me?” he asks. 

Parker flops herself into the center of the bed, Hardison moving quickly out of her way, still pressed against her side. “Come on,” she says, and he climbs onto the bed, careful not to disrupt either of them, kneeling between her legs. They’re still watching him, he knows, but just for a moment, he can’t look at anything other than the way Parker’s spread out before him.

Trying not to think too hard about what he’s doing, he scoots back, a little, and bows his head, then pauses and looks up at her. “Can I—” he asks, and Parker nods, fast.

When he drops his head the rest of the way, Parker causally drapes one of her thighs over his shoulder, pulling him closer with the pressure of her heel against his shoulder blade.

The bed shifts, and Hardison’s moving, and Eliot feels like he should check and make sure things are ok, but Parker’s pressing against his back and she’s _right there_. He drags his nose over the soft cloud of her pubic hair, gently, and carefully spreads her with his thumbs. Her heel smacks against him insistently, and he’d always thought that if this were ever a thing he got to do, he’d want to do it as slow as he could, make it last as long as he could, but instead he drags the flat of his tongue over her clit. 

She’s still wet from touching herself, and he works his tongue against her desperately. She’s no less insistent now that he’s started, rocking against his head, moving him with gentle pressure from her thighs. She’s just as bossy here as she is when they’re on a job, or in the living room, or anywhere else, and it’s a little surprising to discover that he kinda likes it. 

The bed moves behind him, and then Hardison’s hands are on his waist, sliding down his thighs, and Eliot remembers, suddenly, that Parker had been very specific: _fuck me while Hardison fucks you,_ she’d said, and he shivers. 

Parker makes a guttural noise in the back of her throat, one of her hands fisting in his hair, and arches towards him, pulling him closer. He wants to be good, good for her, good for them. He slips a finger into his mouth and pulls it out, leaving it slick and shiny, and drags it over her opening. She squirms against him, letting him inside of her, and for a moment, all he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears.

“Harder,” she gasps, and he presses down, working her clit furiously, curling his finger inside of her and rubbing at the soft, spongy tissue. Hardison’s hands drag up and over his ass, lazily, and then down his stomach before finally, finally landing on his cock. He can’t stop the moan that escapes him, then, or the way that he rocks his hips against the bed, mindlessly, wordlessly begging Hardison for more.

It feels like drowning, like he’s losing himself in this, and he couldn’t care less, completely willing to be whatever they need him to be, to give them whatever they want him to give them. 

Hardison lets go of Eliot’s dick, and he can’t help the whine that escapes him. A moment later, though, Hardison’s fingers ghost over Eliot’s asshole, slick with lube, and he whines for a different reason. For a moment, Eliot freezes entirely, completely sure that he’s about to come, right here and right now. 

Hardison presses against him, and Eliot pushes back, hard and fast, taking Hardison in until he feels Hardison’s knuckle resting against his ass. He rocks himself against it, ignoring the brief flare of pain, and Parker nudges his shoulder with her heels, reminding him of what he’s supposed to be doing.

“More,” he says to Hardison, and then he reconsiders. “Just do it,” he says. “I don’t need—you don’t have to—just _do_ it.” 

He can feel Hardison hesitate, and Eliot taps Parker’s clit with his tongue again, dragging over her. 

“Wait, Alec,” she pants, “give me a minute.” Eliot would laugh if she didn’t have her hand twined in his hair, and her legs wrapped around his head. If he weren’t so fucking caught up in the rush of feeling _used_ that he’s rocking his hips against the bed like a damn schoolboy.

Hardison backs off a little bit, leaving his hands on Eliot’s waist and nothing else, and Eliot closes his eyes and focuses on Parker, moving steadily underneath him and making the hottest, neediest noises that he can imagine. 

“Oh,” Parker huffs out, pulling him hard against her, “oh, _oh_.” She pulses against him, tight and hot, and in a couple minutes he’s going to be inside her, going to make her come on his cock. And he’s going to come on Hardison’s, he thinks, and it’s enough to make him dizzy. 

Parker shoves his shoulder, gently, with one of her feet. “Fuck me,” she says, and there’s nothing in the world that’s going to make him disobey. 

“Should we—get something?” he asks, suddenly feeling like an awkward sixteen year old again, and Parker shrugs. 

“It’s good,” Hardison says, apparently answering for both of them, “unless you got something to tell us.”

Eliot shakes his head, and Parker grins with what looks like relief. “Then come _on_ ,” she says, as close to a whine as he’s ever heard her. 

When he slides into her, she’s slick and wet and hot, and she rolls her hips up against him. He drops his head onto her shoulder, trying to claw back some of his self-control. Instead, Hardison moves behind him, and then his finger’s rubbing against Eliot’s hole again. 

“ _Hardison_ ,” he says, and Parker giggles a little under him. Hardison makes a vaguely interested noise. “Just do it,” Eliot says, and he feels perilously close to begging when he says, “Please. Just—just—” Hardison stops rubbing and pushes gently. “Just _fuck me_ ,” Eliot manages. “Just do it.”

Hardison stops, and Parker drags one of her hands down the side of Eliot’s face. His whole body’s shaking, now, and he knows that there’s no way that either of them is missing exactly how badly he wants this. 

“You sure about this?” Hardison asks.

Eliot nods. “If you don’t do it soon, I’m gonna come before you have a chance,” he admits. 

That seems to be enough to settle things, because a moment later, Hardison’s pushing into him. Eliot makes himself breathe out, let the burn of it ripple through his body, grounding him as he pushes himself back against Hardison. It makes him want to keen in desperation, because he can’t deny that he likes it, the way it hurts a little, the way he’s going to feel it tomorrow, but it’s also just enough to pull him away from the edge, to let him find a little control again. 

A very little control. Pinned between Hardison and Parker ain’t a bad place to be, even less so when Hardison finally starts moving, thrusting shallowly. It takes Eliot a minute to find the rhythm, to time it so that he’s pushing forward into Parker as Hardison pulls out of him, then snapping his hips back against Hardison, but when he does, it leaves him breathless. 

Parker’s moving lazily beneath him, clearly still blissed out from her first orgasm, and if there were any damn room at all, Eliot would slip a hand between them to get at her clit. Instead, he bows his head to take one of her nipples into his mouth, rolling his tongue around it and sucking harder when she arches up into him.

He can feel her panting as they fuck, the way her breath hitches a little every time Hardison thrusts into Eliot’s ass. She bites his lip, hard, and the world suddenly seems very, very big and very far away. 

“Shit,” he manages, tearing his mouth away. “I’m gonna come.” He’s not sure if he’s warning them or what, but Parker seems pleased with it, and Hardison’s next thrust is harder. 

Eliot falls forward onto his elbows, overwhelmed, and Parker clamps around him like a vise. She’s so tight he can hardly move, and he can feel the moment Hardison realizes that, because his thrusts are abruptly much harder, and faster, and Eliot can’t do a damn thing but take it, has never wanted to do anything but take it. 

“Eliot,” Parker says, softly, her lips wet on his skin. He jerks his head up to meet her gaze. “Come for us,” she says, and Hardison slams home again, rocking Eliot forward into Parker’s wet heat, and he does, sobbing into Parker’s neck as he comes for what seems like forever, his toes curling to the point of pain, the rest of the world falling away.

He stays there, then, as Hardison fucks him. Parker wraps her arms around him, stroking his hair, and he closes his eyes and tries to commit this to memory.

When Hardison comes, he kisses the back of Eliot’s neck, casually, like this is no big deal, and then bends over Eliot to kiss Parker. It doesn’t last long before Parker wiggles under him. He’s still sensitive enough from coming that he nearly recoils from the stimulation, but remembers that Parker didn’t come from being fucked and probably feels as stretched and desperate as Eliot had.

He shifts off of her, and Hardison kneels back so that Eliot can roll to Parker’s side. 

“What do you want?” Hardison asks, watching Parker. Eliot draws his thumb over one of her nipples, watching it tighten, and she shivers.

“I want you to eat me,” she says, easily, “and I want Eliot to watch.” She pauses for a moment, and sounds less certain when she says, “Is that ok?”

Hardison’s already on the bed in front of her, so it’s clear that she’s asking Eliot. He nods, not sure that he can trust his voice, and Parker grins hugely, then gasps as Hardison leans forward and buries his face between her legs. 

It feels weirdly voyeuristic to watch, but he can’t tear his eyes away from them as Hardison makes Parker come undone, beautiful and flushed and making needy sounds in the back of her throat. When she comes, she grabs Eliot’s hand and squeezes, tight, and something inside of him clenches, like her hand’s right around his heart.

After they clean up, they settle on the bed again, Parker and Hardison sprawled, naked and tangled together, and Eliot wearing his boxers again, trying not to roll up against them. “You should stay,” he says to Hardison. 

Parker nods and pets Hardison’s head. “You should,” she agrees, then looks at Eliot. “You should, too.”

“Yeah,” says Hardison, his voice raspy. 

“Kinda planned to,” Eliot says. “Parker doesn’t like it when I try to take the couch.”

Her elbow is pointy and she jabs his ribs absolutely unerringly. 

“That’s not what we meant,” says Hardison. 

Eliot goes cold inside, suddenly hyperaware of the way they’re both watching him consideringly. “Ok—?”

“We mean all the time,” Parker says. “Like—like this, but all the time. We can get a big house, even, if you want, and I know you said that guys like you don’t, but—”

That night in the dark feels like a lifetime ago, and he wonders how long they’ve been thinking on this. If they’re sure that this—that he—is what they want. The words are in his mouth before he gets even halfway through the thought, though.

“I don’t need a big house,” he says, knowing immediately that he’s saying the wrong thing. He can feel the way that Parker tenses at it, like she’s getting ready to run. “I’d—” The truth feels heavy and uncomfortable, and it sticks in his throat a little. “I’d stay in a cardboard box with you, if you’d have me,” he says, already feeling the flush of shame that he’s so fucking weak for them spread across his neck. He closes his eyes, like that’ll somehow make this go easier. “Always would’ve.” 

Hardison reaches over and drags him in, pulling Eliot against Parker’s side, Hardison’s arm draped over them both. 

“We love you, too,” Hardison says, and Eliot would protest, say that’s not what he said, but Parker gets there, first.

“We love you, too,” she echoes, and kisses his forehead. 

Eliot takes a deep breath. “I love you, too,” he admits, like this is something other than the scariest thing he’s ever done. 

Parker rolls so she’s facing him, then snuggles into his shoulder. “Go to sleep now,” she says, sounding like she’s already half there herself. 

“Night,” says Hardison. He finds Eliot’s hand and laces their fingers together, resting their joined hands on Parker’s hip.

“G’night,” Eliot says to the dark.

* * *

It seems less scary in the daylight, when he wakes up and Parker’s pressed up against him, and Hardison’s pressed up against her, both of them snoring softly. He slips out of bed and showers, quickly, before heading down to the kitchen to make pancakes. 

It seems less scary still when Hardison comes into the kitchen twenty minutes later and pins him to the refrigerator, letting their kiss turn into a slow, full-body grind.

“Just so you know,” Hardison says when he pulls away, “we’re serious. We’ve known for a long time that we wanted something more than we had with you. Just didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Eliot flips the pancakes and juices another orange. By the time he’s able to answer, Hardison’s sitting at the counter, paging through something on his phone. Eliot sets a glass of juice in front of him and waits for him to look up.

“I knew, too,” he says. “That I wanted more. But I don’t think I woulda known how to answer until now.”  
He turns back to the pancakes before Hardison can say anything else. 

After a minute, Hardison responds. All he says is “Thanks for the juice, Eliot,” but when Eliot glances over, Hardison raises the juice glass and smiles a smile that doesn’t look like it has a damn thing to do with juice.

By the time Parker comes downstairs, lured by the smell of bacon and blueberry pancakes, it feels almost normal. They feel, he thinks, like home.

* * *

Two days later (two nights spent snuggled together in the huge bed later, two days and nights where none of the three of them even leave the house), Hardison tears into the kitchen.

“Got it!” he says, his voice coming in a weird, slightly delayed stereo, once in the kitchen and once through Eliot’s earbud. “Got it, we _got it_.”

Eliot puts down the knife he’s chopping with. “Parker back?” he asks. He knows that the mark’s house is empty, knows that he’s the one who said she could go poke around, but he doesn’t like that she’s just…off, without them, even if she is only down the street, even if they are all wearing earbuds. 

Hardison shakes his head, squinting his eyes at his phone. “Give her a minute.”

Who knows how long “a minute”’s going to be this time, so Eliot picks up the knife and starts chopping again, carrots falling into a neat dice. He’s moved on to peppers by the time Parker comes in, grinning, autumn wind whipping her hair around her face. 

“How’s it look?” she asks Hardison. Eliot pulls out his earbud and chops, letting the even _thock thock thock_ of the knife against the wooden board drown out the sound of Parker and Hardison looking at the computer screen together.

Onions next. It seems like he ought to pack as many veggies as he can into this supper, because they sound excited and pleased, which can only mean that the job’s winding up. Another night or two and they’ll all be back where they belong, he thinks. Back home. Their separate homes. Because whatever they whispered in the dark, that doesn’t change— _ok_ , he admits, _it changes a lot_. He knows better, though, than to think that things will settle into whatever new shapes they’re going to take overnight.

He puts down the knife and tunes back into their conversation as Hardison lets out a long, low whistle. 

“They weren’t drug mules,” he says. “They were—they were _test subjects_. This guy was trying to—to—”

It’s almost funny watching Hardison trying to come up with words, but when Eliot squints at the screen over his shoulder, he realizes that the issue isn’t that Hardison’s struggling to dumb down the idea, it’s the idea that anyone would do this at all.

“He was trying to develop new drugs,” Eliot says, and watches Hardison, still staring at the screen, out of the corner of his eye. “And he was using the students to test them.”

Parker looks horrified, and Hardison nods.

“Yeah,” Hardison says. “And he—the chemical composition of this stuff is…this is _messed up_. We’re talking…”

“We’re talking about the kind of thing where a slight overdose ends with you dead in a dumpster,” Parker says, and Eliot looks away. “So we leak this. All of it,” she says, and thinks for a minute. “What’s his schedule like?”

Eliot answers automatically, filling in both the mark’s normal schedule—gym, work, home—and anything unusual—anniversary dinner with his wife tonight, meeting tomorrow afternoon—Parker cuts him off there, nodding. 

“Ok,” she says. “Cops at noon, every email address associated with the school while he’s in the meeting. By the time he gets out…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but the implications are clear, and Eliot nods, more reclutantly than he’d like. This has been a good job, all up, and he shouldn’t knock that. It’s night right for him to get tetchy about things ending like this, easily and safely.

He doesn’t let himself think about what things, exactly, are coming to an end. 

After supper, Parker suggests that they watch a movie and make popcorn, and Eliot doesn’t protest. 

They pile onto the sofa—or, rather, Parker and Hardison pile on, and then gesture for Eliot to _come on_ and _sit down_ and _give me the popcorn_. Hardison picks the movie—something with explosions and no singing, but Eliot spends most of the time watching them from this new vantage point. By the time the movie’s half over, Hardison’s got his arm along the back of the sofa, his hand resting on the back of Eliot’s neck, and Parker’s leaned up against Hardison and draped her legs over Eliot’s lap. 

“Bedtime?” Parker says when it’s over, and it’s late enough that no one says no. Parker drapes herself over Eliot’s back, waiting for him to piggyback her upstairs, and he does, hitting off lights as he goes, Hardison just behind him. He drops Parker onto the bed and ducks into the bathroom. The first night on this job, he’d spent almost an hour in here, wishing he was anywhere but here. Now, he’s kinda wishing that this job would run forever. 

He doesn’t think that the end of the job will mean the end of—of whatever this is. Living in different places, though, and the loss of the easy closeness that the job had pushed them into sounds—like more of a loss than he really wants to think about. He’d said whatever they’d let him have, and he meant it. It’s not exactly a secret, at this point, that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for them. _And sometimes,_ he reminds himself, _what you do for people is leave them have some space to figure out—_

The train of thought runs off the road when Hardison bangs on the door. “C’mon, man,” he says, “other people gotta pee, too.”

“You know this house has four and a half bathrooms, right?” grumbles Eliot, but he washes his hands and ducks out apologetically. 

“Dibs on the middle!” Parker announces, claiming the center of the bed. No one argues.

They don’t have sex that night. Parker’s half asleep before Hardison’s even out of the bathroom, and Hardison manages to go down maybe five minutes later, only dropping his phone on his face once. 

Eliot’s tired enough that it seems like sleep oughta come quick, but somehow, he finds himself awake for a long time.

* * *

It goes easy. Two p.m. they’re standing outside the admin buildings, watching their not-neighbor get read his rights, and two fifteen, they’re piled into Lucille.

Ten of four and they’re pulling in at the brewpub, and Eliot’s looking at the Challenger, sitting in the lot, and wondering what the hell he’s going to do now. 

“Welcome home,” Hardison says, turning off the van. Parker snorts a little bit. 

He’s not sure how to do this part. Does he go home right away? Does he follow them up to the loft for supper? Does he go check on the pub and figure out what needs saved from Hardison’s “tweaking” while they were gone? 

The hesitation lasts long enough that Hardison and Parker notice it and stop halfway up the stairs to the loft. 

“Come on,” says Hardison, and Eliot guesses that settles that, so he follows them up. He’s never felt especially uncomfortable in their space before, but he does, this time, and stands awkwardly in the kitchen. 

“Do you want—” he says, and trails off, unsure what he was going to ask. 

Parker drops in front of him, already tied into a rig and hanging from the ceiling, and he honest to shit has no idea how she’s managed that in the three minutes that they’ve been inside.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. She’s weirdly perceptive, and while he can’t deny that it’s sometimes nice, this is one of those times when he kinda wishes that she’d be a little more oblivious. 

“Nothing.”

Parker squints at him, and Hardison crosses the kitchen and stands by them, his shoulder almost rubbing against Eliot's. “Something,” he says, and waits. 

Eliot sighs. He’d hoped that there’d be a little more time, here. Time for him to—to figure out what he’s supposed to do, he thinks. “I should go home,” he says, trying to sound casual. “Let you two get back to normal.”

“Wait,” Hardison says, “What?”

He knew—he fucking knew—that he was going to screw this up. “I just—you know, I oughta go back to my apartment,” he says. “I can make dinner first,” he offers. 

“Did I—did I _hallucinate _this conversation?” Hardison says, sounding angrier than Eliot would’ve expected. “Did we not talk about all this the other night?”__

__There’s not really a good answer to that, Eliot doesn’t think, but he prickles at it anyhow. “Hey, I meant everything I said.” It sounds more defensive than he meant it to, and he looks determinedly at the empty space between them, not sure he wants to see whatever’s in their eyes._ _

__“We thought you’d stay,” Parker says. “You know. Here.” She waves an arm, vaguely, and he looks up despite himself. “With us.”_ _

__“I know that it’s not _technically_ a huge house,” Hardison says, his voice dangerously kind._ _

__Parker butts in, adding, “Or a cardboard box,” and Hardison nods agreeably._ _

__“Also not a cardboard box,” he says, “but we thought that it might do, for now.”_ _

__Eliot can see on their faces when what they’re saying registers with him. “Are—”_ _

__Hardison cuts him off. “Don’t insult us by asking what I think you’re about to ask,” he says._ _

__It takes Eliot a moment to find the words. “I think it’ll do,” he says. A slow grin spreads over Hardison’s face, and Parker launches herself at them, happily draping her arms around their shoulders. “Yeah,” Eliot says, “I think it’ll do just fine.”_ _

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] like a map of a place you've never been](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12374412) by [Readbyanalise010](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readbyanalise010/pseuds/Readbyanalise010)




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